Fishing at twin ponds on crazy hair day at Evergreen School

Simone's Pre-School class made fishing poles today. The three year olds added hooks and sinkers, squirmy live worms (or bright salmon eggs) and went fishing at twin ponds, just a short hike into the woods from the school. Last year they caught a fish. This year they needed to cook up hot dogs and smores over the coals as there were no nips from the tranquil waters. 

The woods were beautiful! The weeping willow made some lovely shadows on the water to protect the young fishermen from the sun.


It turns out that today is more than just Fishing Day. It is also one of the Evergreen School's Spirit Days. This one is called "Crazy hair day" and the kids take those instructions seriously. Wild things appear on their heads...including, on Eliza, an embedded water bottle buried under her golden locks to create a "Volcano" on top of her blond head. If you look closely at the photos you'll see some spray paint on a shorn scalp (Daniel) or some exciting pink hair (Claire) or extra silly pony tails (Ruby, Evelyn & Simone) or red hair (Zane).

In the next picture you can see that each preschool student has a buddy from the Third grade standing with them. These buddies have been visiting them throughout the school year for fun projects. I overheard one buddy trying to get his underwing to try some of his suggestions about what fishing technique would attract the baby coho salmon to bite his worm. The buddy explained to his 3 year old understudy, "You see you are just half my age, which means I am two times your age and thus I know twice as much as you." The youngster did not understand this complex math at all and thus proceeded to do his own thing with the fishing pole.

Here are the 12 third grade "buddies" standing with 12 preschoolers and 3 teachers about to head out for the hike. Everyone has their fishing pole upright as they are practicing how not to knock into one another with the many poles.

This photo also shows the kids tying strings to poles to make fishing rods. They added the weights, hooks, and the bait to those hooks, a bit later.  

In the back of the classroom picture you can see a fish tank. Right before we left on the fishing expedition, Simone told Dorothy Shark-bait, the fish that lives in the classroom fish tank, "Don't worry Dorothy, I'll bring you a worm, we have more than enough bait. There will be worms left over."  The picture also shows the planets hanging from Teacher Judith's =classroom ceiling.  A few days after this event, the same ceiling was strung with a gray whale, an orca and a blue whale amid a massive bloom (or swarm) of jelly fish.  All of which, the kids made. It is a wonderfully creative place.

Home Depot or Cart Etiquette

We hardly ever seem to be able to obey the proper cart etiquette. 

The girl enjoying themselves in the cart at Home Depot.  They love building projects.  At least for the fist 10 minutes.  Naomi gets sidetracked with play tools and deep ito her own building projects.  Simone tends to jump in with fortifying snacks, which is why the bookshelf has cherrios smashed inside the slats.

You Complete Me

If you look at the window behind Simone you will see, in the lower right, the seam for the door to the Western Bridge. A Seattle museum founded by Bill & Ruth True to exhibit contemporary art. Simone was inspired to do a chalk drawing of her own outside the museum after seeing the exhibit, "You Complete Me." Below are large photographs viewed with 3-D glasses.

The girls hooted and hollered through Switzerland artist, Andres Zybach's yellow passageway. As they stomped down the ribs of the tunnel, the hydraulic system was activated, creating gurgling noises and sending paint into tubes which spew color down the gallery walls across the room.

The last image is from a grey bouncy house by artists' Eli Hansen & Oscar Tuazon. A la " a thinking room" that had the girls climbing the walls.

The manufacturing of controversy about Evolution!

I like this article by Valerie Tarico about the manufacturing of controversy about evolution!

The article points out that we have seen this insane manufacturing of controversy (manufactroversy) in the past.

"The fact is, there is no scientific controversy about evolution, just like there is no scientific controversy about whether tobacco causes lung cancer or whether human activity causes global warming. However, in all three examples, someone powerful and well established loses out when and if the scientific mountain of evidence becomes common knowledge and widely accepted. "

The "anti-science" forces (I'm not sure what else to call them) created a movie called EXPELLED about creationism. They ardently say they aren't creationist, they just believe in intelligent design and then they ardently say they are creationists and that intelligent design is creationism. Logic is not a strong point in this movie. The film is produced by Premise Media who previously brought us the ultra violent, Passion of the Christ.

How in the world did people get so easy to fool?

Paul Abrams takes a look at the movie and says Blashemy! Paul reminds us that science is indifferent to our preferences, it is what it is. Humankind ignores that reality at its peril.

The National Center for Science Education put together a comprehensive website about the crazy movie.

David and Naomi after work

It is 5:45pm on a gorgeous day. Simone, Naomi and I are in the Chinese Room. Simone is finishing her afternoon nap in the double wide stroller. We have circumnavigated Seattle's business district with stops at the library, Sculpture park and Aquarium.

Naomi is awake and happily checking out the carved Chinese dogs and the other relics in the room. David finished a long work day in the office and has come up to join us. What a lovely golden finish to what had been a heavenly day "out and about" the city.






We are eagerly watching the development of the big hole in front of City Hall as we hear that a park with a jungle gym will go in alongside offices and housing. We'd love a place to climb and swing downtown! Here is the block (Cherry, 4th, James and 3rd) where that is hopefully in progress.

Legislation Trumps Jurisprudence & Deciphering the Siberian Wolf Code

On Saturday morning we headed North to Simone's ski class at Snoqualmie. En route Simone asked me to turn on the radio. So I did and "Stop in the Name of Love" by Diana Ross came on. Simone said, "That was just the song I wanted." I was laughing for 5 miles. Later we found a talk show on the radio about fixing things. They pointed out that many things today are created with one use (or a particular lifespan) in mind. The hair dryer doesn't open, though to fix it, one would simply replace a fuse. Most toasters today don't have crumb trays, so there is no way to scrape the heating elements as we did in the past when they started getting rusty. One caller into the fix-it show wanted to repair his "reputation" which has us all in stitches as the fix-it team took that on. They advised that "he stay at the table" keep talking to the folks who had written him off and keep doing his best to hold up his side of the bargain in life whenever he had an "opportunity" to do so. Simone was quietly listening to all this. In time, they assured him, his good name would be restored. "What is a good name?" Simone said. "I don't like my name. Can I change it to Naomi? That is a good name for me."  The radio show went on...The fix-it hosts warned the man with the tarnished reputation not to be sensitive to what other folks say as they pointed out that 95% of what other people say is about them and that he should establish his own criteria of success. At this point Simone piped in again. She liked the idea that perhaps NOT listening was good and she said, "I'm tired of having to listen to other people and do what they say...and Mom they just said that listening to other people is a bad idea. Did you hear that Mom?  It was on the radio."  Hard for me to stop laughing long enough to respond.

As we drove North to snow country, I found myself thinking back to a conversation from the day before with Virginia senatorial candidate, Governor Mark Warner. I asked him if, assuming he gets into office, he and his fellow senatorial pals (the "radical centrists" as he calls them) would propose legislation protecting the rights we now have under Roe versus Wade (along with other bioethics and privacy rights we need) since I feel that we have already lost the courts (5 -4 in the Supreme Court) and much worse than that in the lower courts. Legislation trumps in jurisprudence so this is one way we may restore and protect science and privacy rights going forward. Gov. Warner replied that he thought it might be a Pandora's Box to start legislating women's rights. He worried that attempting to do so might open us up for a backlash and the other side might take the opportunity to remove the rights we have today. I believe that as a nation, this is a conversation we need to be brave enough to stay at the table and have. Why do I believe this? Well, in Washington State we haven't been able to protect the right to purchase "Plan B" at a pharmacy and though we have been in the courts trying to protect our citizens basic rights for years, we are getting shut down. I see legislation as a way to get this out into the open where I believe it will be clear we need to protect the rights of all of our citizens.


Simone is in "Treasure Trails," the youngest group of skiers who meet every Saturday at Snoqualmie. Katrina, Jake and Logan (also pictured here) are in the more advanced classes. They are part of the "Ripacheeps" "Ice Vipers" and "Aslan's Toxic Monkeys" and have spent the better part of the past two months skiing deep into the snowy northern woods searching for clues to decipher the Siberian Wolf Code. Last week they located the crown (Logan and Jake are holding it) and the Staff (in Katrina's arms). Heroes! Next week they will search for the missing jewels that go on the spikes of the crown. The crown comes from a long line of gold bike helmeted Kings and Queens from Siberia...Such finery!

After skiing we headed to Zander and Scott's birthday party. Our tribe, so to speak, was there in grass skirts and diving gear as it was a surf theme. Our evening was powered by Kevin's scrumptious chocolate ganache birthday cake. The kids were intensely hyper and wild. Here is a video of them jumping on a mattress and racing through a big cardboard box in the basement.

When we got back to the tower, we discovered that Simone's bicycle had arrived and was in the lobby (Thanks William!) Simone jumped on and took it for a spin on the terrazzo before we headed up the elevator to do a circle around the chinese room's deck.

The tribe aflight or Zander, Scott, David, Eric and Stefan leap together

Nice height David!

Double-wide jaunt through urban landscape

We left the house in the double wide stroller. Simone was working in her easy erase writing book sent from Grandma Patt.

Simone was also in charge of documenting this particular afternoon romp with her camera. She pointed out that "We need a picture of the tower, a picture of a train and a picture of the new gate to China town!"

So we set off due south to the International District to see if any of those could be found. We usually have a list of errands on these afternoon jaunts but we also have a rather lengthly list of favorite places we want to visit and certain urban projects we like to keep an eye on. One of those urban projects is William Justen's 1521 Second Avenue building! As you can see it is coming along. The homes have floor to ceiling windows so from the outside all you see is glass. For errands today we had 25 pounds of books (about as much as Simone weighs) to return to the library. En route Simone did take a few pictures but it wasn't long before she fell asleep and I took over camera detail.

Simone and I love the bodies climbing the parking garage wall that you see pictured here. We wish our hands and feet could stick to upside down surfaces like that! The girls take turns sleeping on the walk. When Simone is awake she likes to help push the stroller. When Naomi is awake she likes to stand up in the stroller and so I have to hold her so she doesn't tumble out...and can't take any pictures.

(Double click to see more detail.)

Saturday was a fun SNOW day.

Simone takes the Treasure Trails Nordic ski class at Snoqualmie Pass while David and I alternate skate skiing the loop and watching Naomi. Our friends Eli and Karel turned us on to the kids program. To sign up or find out more you click here. In these particular pictures it was snowing, but much of the day was warm and sunny.
When we got back to Seattle, David noticed that there was a one man show "7Sins" at the Theatre off Jackson in our neighborhood. (It was our date night.) So we headed over to the Szechuan Noodle House (next to the Green Leaf on 8th) for delicious homemade noodles and dumplings (we watched the making of the dumplings at the table next to ours as we ate) and then we wandered down the street to for a fresh fruit bubble tea before the performance. The ID (International District) is having a Renaissance. New condos, restaurants, bubble tea stands, a creperie, a newly renovated Wing Luke museum and these recent additions are not replacing older businesses, just squeezing in making the neighborhood dense and lively.

James Judd, the performance artist, launched his monologue from the open air Santa Fe Opera house and then to took us 40 floors below Las Vegas to an alien employees-only lunch hall with a snoring air system and sticky floors covered in green disinfectant. We enjoyed it! Here is the Stranger's blurb:

"7 SINS is a collection of true, fast, and funny stories from the life of writer/comedian James Judd. It chronicles his early ambition to win his 5th Grade book report competition with My Search for Patty Hearst, and his first
job when his working mother paid him to watch The Young and the Restless and then reenact it for her. He relives his varied careers as a forgotten employee of AT&T, where he did nothing for a year, an even shorter-lived career as a dot.com journalist (which led to an insane night with five Chinese billionaires in a Chinese bordello), and as an under-prepared criminal defense attorney representing violent teenage girls, as well as many more strange and always funny stories. "

Kidspace and The Getty Museum

On Wednesday, Simone said, "I miss Tanner and Kendall." Tanner lives in Idaho and we haven't seen her in many months. Kendall lives in Los Angeles but we haven't seen her in over a year so I was surprised to hear these names come up. Amazing what is ticking inside Simone's 3 year old noggin! We decided we'd make them each a little movie and let them know how we were feeling. Here is the video for Tanner. Further down in this post ..."live from the blue room at The Getty," is the video for Kendall.


After a day of walking downtown LA, meandering through the dense Farmers Market with the stroller, visiting the Library's full scale puppet theater, running through the Frank Gehry Concert Hall and then finally... playing at the 9th street park, Simone made an announcement. "I need people to play with that are kids," she said. So on Thursday, we started the day at Kidspace in Pasadena. What a marvelously creative place! We found great kids there. Simone raced up Kal Banuska's 40 foot Raindrop tower (pictured above) and Tom Luckey's Wisteria Climber half a dozen times. Naomi cracked up as the earthquake demo shook the ground beneath her. The museum has a slew of presentations throughout the day and one we particularly liked demanded a bit of audience participation. I've included a video of Simone performing the mother mosquito in "Bugs that Suck Blood."
We finally said goodbye to our new found friends and somehow I got both girls out of Kidspace. (It was a struggle to depart, as the place is fascinating and we didn't come close to exploring all of it. ) As I was exiting the parking lot, I turned around to see how the girls were doing and discovered that both had fallen asleep. Hmm. Might as well head to The Getty and see if perhaps I can cover some of the sculpture garden during their afternoon naps. (Double click on the pictures to zoom in.)

The Getty was for me, what Kidspace was for Simone and Naomi. It was heaven. What grand spaces. What marvelous works. I get wound up by great art. Love the feeling of connection to one another, across centuries, across cultures, the realization that we are here on earth for a lifetime of wondering, struggling, problem solving, playing, caring, aching, creating...
Simone awoke from her nap in in the middle of Bill Viola's "Emergence" video and just as the skinny naked man rises from the fountain. "What happened to him?" she asked me? "Why are the women crying?" "The film doesn't tell us." I said. "Well the women look very sad and the man doesn't have any clothes on," she said. We headed to what the Getty calls, The Family Room. It is a small building with six interactive exhibits and plenty of space for baby Naomi to wander through on her own without breaking anything from the 1700's. In the photo below, we are tying ourselves up with the pretend ropes. These are black foam tubes that you can arrange into various holes in the wall to strap you into a spot. We tied ourselves up and then burst free triumphantly with foam zooming everywhere. Simone was still pretty groggy from her nap.


Naomi loved rolling around in the blue room. This is a bedroom done in cerulean brocade with soft silk walls and pillow rolls.
(Double click on the picture to see more detail.)

Simone and Naomi concerto

We're in Los Angeles for a couple days. Wednesday we happened upon Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall. We were aiming for MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) across the street but discovered it is closed on Wednesdays in the winter. After running around the shiny Concert Hall with Simone and Naomi, we picked up some lightweight kids instruments at the fun music store and pied piper-ed back to the hotel room.
On our way through downtown LA, we met a guitar teacher walking home from work. She was dragging a flatbed of colorful kids guitars and from her we added a $20 dollar blue guitar to the plastic sax and flute.
Here are the two young musicians fooling around with their new instruments in the hotel room. In the video, Naomi walks a little which is something she's been doing tentatively for about a month. She is 9 months old in this clip. Simone is three. They love making movies!

Vitamin D

Slithering or Rhoads' End or Ahoy Mateys! or Sunset Boggie

Arriving at Linden's place, Rhoad's End, on Orcas feels so good. Simone (3) plays with Celeste (4) and Rhoads (6) while Naomi (5 weeks old) sleeps most of the time.  

"Look what I caught!" -Rhoads

Our ship!

Had to stop and feed the horses apples.

Blaise blows our minds

Wait till you see Blaise Aguera y Arcas talk at TED (below) about the gorgeous power of Seadragon and Photosync.

Blaise's talk gave me a sweeping tummy-flipping sensation.  Similar to the first time I faxed a picture, received a voice mail or sailed on the open sea.  Simply marvelous.   Enjoy!





Blaise and Adrienne (Fairhall) have two wonderful kids, Anselm and Eliot, who are about the same ages as Simone and Naomi.  Adrienne's Wall is the name of their family blog.

Adrienne also has delivered masterly contributions to the world.  Both in physics and neuroscience.  She has created tools we can use to decode the language of the brain and see into what a person is experiencing.  Her elegant mathematical operations actually track a neuron's electrical activity and may one day allow us to stimulate an experience for example, give a person the sensation of a prosthetic limb.  Wild no?

Another Adrienne discovery about how we experience is the revelation that what we see and feel  depends upon what we saw and felt previously.  She recently helped teach a visual processing medical class about this, where she showed that-the details a person would notice when looking at a painting, for  instance-depends at a fundamental, microscopic level on what their eyes were focused on previously.  The idea is rather complex, Adrienne said, because it implies that perception is always changing: "What one experiences influences how one experiences it."  More here.

Margit and Naomi meet

Nice

Welcome Naomi!

Proud Papa sings Naomi her first lullaby.

"I'm a big sister!" -Simone

It was 8:46pm on May 16th, 2007.  Naomi arrived weighing an ounce less than 7 pounds and stretched to 19 1⁄4 inches.  Basking in the special day when our family grew to four.  

Somehow when newborn Naomi is getting her first bath, she lifted her body up onto her elbows and knees.  Dr. Sarah de la Torre said this was highly unusual.  

I find myself enamored with the little foot prints.

What a little mouth you have. 

"I can help you take care of Naomi!  Look Mama. " -Simone

Simone sings a lullaby to Naomi.

Sonya meets Naomi.

Theresa meets Naomi.

Yahoo Naomi is here! We were so excited we whipped up a birth announcement and sent it to our friends and family.