Friday, August 31, 2012

Sea Ranch

Napoleon didn't bring this much stuff to Russia when he walked an Army across a continent, I told Baleen. Yeah, how'd that work out for him, she asked?

We're off to Sea Ranch, the 9 mile coastal community just south of Mendocino County, and one of the last land grants of the Mexican government before the Stars and Stripes said, I think we'll take that. It was given to Ernest Rufus, a naturalized Mexican from Wurttemberg, who brought in another German, Frederick Hugel, because the Mexican land grant said you had to improve the land. He probably left that up to Frederick while he picked abalone from the sea in front of him.

We won't be improving the land or diving for abalone, but we will be socializing past 8pm for the first time in months. But it can't be too late, becuase with four five month olds, all born within 12 days of each other, the crying's bound to start early.  

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

TDB, the Vegetarian

The Dragon Boss may have to become a vegetarian. They're saying there's gonna be another 2 billion people by the time he's 40 and there may not be enough water for all those people to get protein with every meal.

Or even every fifth meal, which is the global average right now. But to support 9 billion people in 2040, protein can only be 5% of the global diet.

Apparently, one third of the arable land in the world is planted to feed animals, which means that a protein based diet requires 5 to 10 times as much water as a vegetarian one. Vulgar bulgur, anyone? That means you, TDB.


Monday, August 27, 2012

Bananas

We're eating solid foods over here in the Mission suburbs. Our northern neighbor Tyler Florence has us excited about the pureed mint and pees (Green Gook!) and butternut squash in his cookbooks, but that's for the months to come.

For now, it's bananas. We chose bananas for TDB's first solid foods mostly because...they were handy. And they're easy. Nothing to clean, just mash, mash, mash.

TDB gave a start at the first bite, he looked just a wee bit skeptical, but by the third bite he was reaching for the spoon like it was Nutella. Milk's still his main source of calories and nutrition, but hey, if TDB wants some bananas, then he'll get some bananas. After all, he sleeps with a monkey.


Friday, August 24, 2012

South End

The Dragon Boss went to the South End for the first time tonight, 5 months into his life and about 24 years before the age I made my first visit. He didn't get in the water, Baleen made sure of that, but he did get a little wet.

It was the bi-annual Run Jump Swim, the event that SdB abandoned 3 laps in while in second place about a year ago (where's #22? - in the sauna, Baleen said). Numbered t-shirts come to the first twelve finishers.

Which means the bi-annual battle begins. I try and win a shirt, Baleen tries to throw it out. Two summers ago she left my first RJS shirt on a goat path along a Greek island. The one from this spring is in my dresser drawer, the same place where the second RJS will be with the same letter on the right sleeve, #12.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

iPhone (4)

The Dragon Boss made me get an iPhone. He wanted me to record his every spit up and blowout on digital video so we can all sit around a computer and laugh at it ten years from now.

Not counting my Blackberry, which really isn't all that smart, it's my first smartphone and while I'm sure it does lots of other great stuff, it takes absolutely fabulous pictures and videos. Grizzly got one, too, so we can FaceTime across the coasts.

The Dragon Boss loves it. He tries to grab it whenever we put it in front of him. He never did that with the old Nokia, not only because it was only around for his first two weeks, but also because I never pointed that single megapixel camera phone at him. But the iPhone? He sees it almost as much as he sees me. 
TDB reaching for the iPhone

Monday, August 20, 2012

Ore-gon

Baleen offered me the following deal before we left for Oregon. You can skip out from baby duties on Saturday morning as you pedal your bicycle in the woods, but you can't pedal it all the way. You have to meet us along the lake for a hike.

Turns out that the meeting point, a little over halfway at mile 60, was 4,500 feet into the ride's 6,400 feet of total climbing. I gave up the last 30 miles of pure downhill, but I missed another 1,900 feet of rolling climbing around the other half of the lake.

Deal, I said. If you bring The Dragon Boss and some magic Oregon blueberries, I'll meet you at Cleetwood Cove just after noon for a hike down to a spot about 20 feet above the lake. Then we'll jump in 'til we're about four feet deep.


Friday, August 17, 2012

Crater Lake

If you're going to drive over 7 hours from the Mission suburbs to the United States' deepest lake, you better get in that lake once you get there, even if you don't swim all the way to the bottom.

The Dragon Boss was the only one of the 5 of us who didn't get in, and while I'm sure he wanted to cool off in thousands of years of snowmelt and accumulated rain, he didn't put up a fuss, just as he didn't put up a fuss on any of the 7 hours in the car.

That's not to say that he didn't get in the water, he put on that speedo diaper and swam around with mom and dad in the hotel's chlorinated pool, but he'll have to wait for his first dip in Crater Lake.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Anniversary

On Tuesday night, Baleen and I looked back on two years of Baleen telling customer services agent, No, it's C-K-E, with a dinner at West of Pecos. We meant to eat at the bar at Locanda, as we had a few months ago at a Saturday night at 7.30, but we mistakenly thought that all San Francisco residents would still be in front of the mirror at 7pm when we arrived, leaving the whole bar to the two of us, but there was already an hour wait when we got there.

So we jaywalked across Valencia, sat down at the bar, and ordered a Shiner Bock. The location was appropriate as Pecos is west Texas, west of Odessa in fact. If you walk due north, you'll eventually hit New Mexico which is where we were this time last year. We put that on top of the page as we recounted the last 12 months in Baleen's notebook, a tactic borrowed from Henley's parents.

There was plenty to write down over green chile cheeseburgers and chile rellenos, from those footloose days before The Dragon Boss, to the 9 months of anticipation and telling people and accumulating goods to March 16th, 2012. And on the first day of our third year of marriage, we spent it at the doctor's office with TDB getting fitted for an inhaler. Here's to the next 12 months.

Monday, August 13, 2012

1 Sock

Somwhere between 27th Street and 22nd Street The Dragon Boss lost a sock. He was on my chest in the Baby Bjorn, facing out, just staring at things with his head up as he always does in the morning, and when I reached down to hold onto his feet, I got a handful of cotton and a handful of skin.

I definitely didn't know he had lost the sock and I don't think he did, either. He did make a sound just past La Boulange on 24th Street, but I think that was his Good Morning! shriek to Otis, the black lab we've seen twice now, and not a There goes my sock, dad! shriek.

Had he not been the biggest baby in the hospital in this year of the Dragon, perhaps we'd call him One Sock or Missing Sock. Then we could get back to calling Shrimp Jr by her real name again, Full Moon.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Treehouse

Well, our nuclear family of three has a housing delimma again. Do we put an offer on the Treehouse, the SOFH (single outdoorsy family house) 140 steps up the Dipsea trail with no deeded parking or do we just keep on keeping on here in the Mission suburbs, blissfully content to rent and hopeful that whenever we need a larger space, a solution will occur.

We'll have to call a family meeting this weekend and hash it out, then we'll vote. Don't think The Dragon Boss doesn't get his say, he does, and as the third member of the family, he just may hold the deciding vote.

Which really means that we're not sure what we should do if a four and a half month baby is going to decide for us. Well, I can't wait to hear what he's going to say.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Seafood Curry

There's a break in the quinoa dinners. Baleen's working from home today. When her half day plus ends around 2 or 3pm, she'll head on over to Whole Foods and to Rowan's to pick up The Dragon Boss for some Indian curry tonight.

I've been dropping TDB off and picking him up as Baleen returned to her one hour commute x 2 which means that at the end of the day we've been hanging out as a family for thirty minutes before TDB got his final meal of the day and I cooked dinner.

With Baleen back in business, taste should increase, as should the number of dishes I have to clean up after dinner. It's all part of family times over here in the Mission suburbs. 

Monday, August 6, 2012

Back to School

It's back to basics over here in the Mission suburbs. Baleen did the thing she hasn't done in weeks, which is drive down to Silicon Valley, put in those more than eight hours, then drive back, and I took care of dinner.

For these last few weeks Baleen's done most of the cooking, usually knocking it out of the park, but sometimes missing, too, like the cooked calamari with Shrimp Jr, which is bound to happen if you swing as hard as she does and never look at a recipe.

Tomorrow morning The Dragon Boss will be having some quinoa and mangoes with a little yogurt and lemon curd for dessert (yogurt and mangoes if I were providing the milk). For her second dinner on her second day back at work she'd like to stay gluten free, she said, with some quinoa taco salad. Better get used to some Peruvian superfood, TDB. It's headed your way.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Sergei

A rifle isn't a wife but you have to look after it and give it tender, loving care. Olympian Sergei Martynov of Belarus, gold medal winner in the 50m prone rifle competition.

I've learned a lot from London. Namely, that women's gymnastics is one of the most unbelievable, unenviable sports there is, that gamesmanship might get you kicked out of the Games in badminton, but not women's soccer or track cycling, and that watching the nightly NBC telecast is like having dinner at A16 on Chestnut, they keep you waiting and waiting until you swear you'll never come back, then the moment comes and it all feels worthwhile.

Then come Olympians like Sergei. Before today, I couldn't name one Olympian in any shooting event and I'm not sure I could point out Belaurs on the map. Two weeks from now I probably still won't be able to point out Belarus and I won't be able to name any Olympic shooters, but today I know who Sergei Martynov is and he has no idea who I am. Or Baleen or TDB.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Fierce Five

The Fierce Five is interrupting our sleep. When the human pogo stick, McKayla Maroney stuck that one and only vault yesterday after nearly scraping the ceiling, Baleen and I were done for, the needed 9pm bedtime forgotten as memories of Cold War rivalries returned: the Rooshians versus five American teenage girls.

As NBC broadcast the old VHS tapes of little McKayla Maroney prancing about, Baleen and I did a little math. To become an Olympian at 16 means countless hours of practice. Maybe 3 a day starting at 10 for 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, and a little over a thousand hours before that. That's 5,000 hours of practice. All for five vaults over five days. Which just makes that 16.233 that McKayla stuck last night, which should have been a 16.5, which would have meant a perfect 10.0 by the old scoring standard, all the more impressive.

We don't think we'll push The Dragon Boss toward gymnastics. That math is a little scary, as seen in the parents of all the gymnasts shown on TV except for cool as ice Gabby Douglas' family, even if mom thinks he might look good in a snug pair of tights. We better start watching rowing.