This is not Violet

But I thought it was a funny picture.

We have the a/c working, thank goodness.

Let there be light

The electrician came very early this morning and put in a temporary fix that supposedly should hold us over until Wed. when he can put in a whole new box. So hopefully this afternoon we will be able to run the A/C and keep it tolerable in there. The dishwasher seemed to be running when I left so I'm hoping this will work for the time being.

Usually we love living in an older house, but at times like this it is rather tedious.

Ups and downs...

Owen had a really good first day of school. He likes his teacher a lot - she seems really good - and was excited to hear they will be going on a field trip "at least every six weeks" (to where, I haven't heard yet, although the Folsom Zoo is one possibility and I hear last year she took her class to the Maidu Interpretive Center which I think is in Roseville, which is a center for/about a Native American tribe who lived in this area.

The down side is that we are having major problems with our electricity, and it is currently almost 90 degrees in our house. There is no power in the bedrooms and the stove and A/C aren't working at all either. It has been about 103 for the past couple of days and the power kept going out. The electrician told me that heat is a trigger for the power to kick off when your circuit breaker is about to go. Ours is original to the house (1954) and it is time for a replacement. So he is coming tomorrow morning early to get things working temporarily and then on next Wed. will do a full replacement of the electrical box. It is really a drag not being able to get cool, though.

In the Merde for Love

I'm reading a book Julia might enjoy, In the Merde for Love, which is a light novel by an Englishman living in France. I picked it up off the new books shelf at the library with Douglas hanging over me so I had approximately 15 seconds to pick a book, but it turned out not to be a bad one. It's sort of entertaining to read the English view of the French. At one point in the part I was reading last night he was visiting a seaside town called Ars. You can imagine what fun the English have with a name like that. He comments, "Everyone was buying their newspapers at a shop called the Ars Presse, which sounded to me like an illegal wrestling move."

Finally... the class lists are posted

Owen got someone I think is very good for his teacher this year (school starts Wed.) and the list of other students looks good too. We were overall very pleased. He will be in a 1-2 combination class. There are lots of combos at his school. For some reason they like to do it that way.

This is funny. (Read her description.) Don't try taking 6 kids to the grocery store. You may come home with something you weren't expecting.

Pictures

These pictures are from last Saturday, when we attended two birthday celebrations - one at the Nut Tree family park in Vacaville for Douglas's friend Bradley, and one for Mary.

hello

I've been slacking on the blogging lately.

Owen lost yet another tooth last night at the River Cats game. That makes five. He barely has any teeth to eat with now. It's making corn on the cob, peaches, apples, and even hamburgers pretty tough to eat these days. The others are starting to come in, but not far enough really to use regularly.

Douglas has a fever of near 103 today. He is taking a nap right now (oops I think he just woke up).

Yolo County Fair

I took the boys to the county fair this afternoon. They checked out some animals, tried their first (mini) roller coaster ride and had pizza and snow cones.








The roller coaster was fun!










It was shaped like a dragon.








These other pictures are left over from the past few weeks.


























This was the mini golf place where we played in Tahoe.

Comment from Douglas...

"Sometimes my mouth can't stop laughing."

We went to the farmer's market last night and the kids played with some friends. Owen met another boy, a baseball fan, who will be starting at his elementary school in a few weeks in either 1st or 2nd grade (they are still not sure about this boy's placement coming from another district).

Apparently class listings will be posted on Aug 24, so we will finally find out who the teacher will be as well as the classmates.

Gulp!

Owen's friend Caleb came over this afternoon (and just left). We went to the library, played baseball at the park, and then came back and the kids were having popsicles on the porch. While eating a popsicle, Owen swallowed his loose tooth! Caleb suggested he write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining the problem, so I guess he may do that.

This week they're in a camp called California Explorations. Yesterday they made a building foundation that was earthquake resistant, involving putting four marshmallows between two pieces of cardboard. If not up to code, it was at least tasty.

Too-hot rant

No, not here. It's actually been quite pleasant here for at least a week. But this rant cracked me up: Damn you, Al Gore!

Owen is loving his Rainbow Summer camp. I think we will have to sign up for it again next year.

On Sept 1 the new UCD football stadium opens with a game against Western Washington U. The students don't come back until October though so it probably won't be too crowded.

Dude, that's epic

Owen was told by another kid in day camp that he had an "epic name." Being out of it, I had no idea what that meant (though thought it sounded like a positive evaluation). Thanks to google I have now learned that "epic" is surfing slang for cool, awesome, "all-time," etc. You learn something new every day.

The kids and I watched Barry hit HR #757 on his first at-bat last night. It was a huge hit, a splashdown that ended up in the Bay (apparently the 45th splash hit at AT&T Park, 35 of which have been hit by Bonds). A guy in a kayak with a sweatshirt reading "BONDS ARMY" fished it out. Then he was escorted away by security, presumably for his own safety.

Journeys with George

I watched Journeys with George last night, which was a documentary made by Alexandra Pelosi (Nancy's daughter) who was with the NBC press corps in 2000. I think it was shown on HBO, but I rented it from our local video store. The documentary is about following Bush around the country on the press plane. About half the movie features Bush joshing with the press corps on the back of the plane, and the other half is mainly about what it is like being one of those reporters. It's pretty interesting. It looks like a hellish job - she traveled almost a million miles during that year (an average of a cross-country flight a day?), got to hear the same stump speech three times a day for an entire year, ate loads of prefab turkey and bologna sandwiches, etc. I liked the part where one of her friends, the Houston Chronicle reporter RG Ratcliffe, deconstructs the relationship between one of their bologna sandwiches and the Republican presidential candidates while showing the parts of the sandwich. You've got the white bread, the bologna, and the cheesy ads full of holes (Swiss cheese).

756

We had turned off the Giants game by 8:51 when Barry Bonds broke the home run record (we only saw his first at-bat), but Owen was really excited this morning when I showed him the picture in the newspaper. Dan opened up the computer and showed him the clip on ESPN.com. Barry must be relieved it's finally over. The paper said that the guy who caught the ball is from Queens, was just stopping over in SF en route to Australia and bought a ticket outside the stadium. That certainly was lucky.

Violet brought a dragonfly the size of a Buick in this morning. She is getting to be quite a hunter... unfortunately.

The lowest high

Sacramento had a somewhat odd weather record yesterday - the lowest high temperature ever for the date. The high was 74 degrees. Saturday it was 102 in Davis and Sunday it was in the mid-70s. We definitely had a rapid change. It was lovely yesterday.

Owen is in a city day camp this week called "Rainbow Summer." He liked the first day a lot. They played "blob tag" where the person who is tagged has to join the group who are all holding hands and you keep going until everyone is part of the big blob. They are supposed to swim today, and I hope they won't freeze to death. Next week he has morning science camp called "California Explorations," the following week is an afternoon soccer camp ("Goal Getters") and then school starts on Wed. the 29th.

Dan is working a lot, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. They have to be done all their bill analyses by the 16th and will brief the chair on Sun the 19th. Hopefully things will be a little easier after that.

Steal This Sweater

On my daily Stitch 'n' Bitch calendar yesterday they had an item about Steal This Sweater, a site by an LA artist who knits (primarily using a knitting machine) funky radical sweaters with all kinds of writing and pictures on them. The images are worth checking out. Pretty wild.

The kids and I went to Berkeley yesterday to see Julia on her brief U.S. tour. It was fun. We enjoyed a bit of basketball at Albany High School. They are tearing up the baseball fields there, for what purpose I am uncertain. Douglas got to see some cheerleaders practicing, always a popular activity for him.

Poor Dan got home at 1:30 last night. Too much work. August looks to be pretty crazy. There is still no state budget, despite rumors flying for months now that it would pass any day. The Assembly passed an unacceptable bill with some egregious errors in it and then up and went on recess before they had worked out a deal with the Senate, so that caused some major holdups.