September 2006 Archives

Like the crazy fools we are, we made the long trek out to Casa de Fruta today to visit the Northern California Renaissance Faire today. Admittedly, it's probably a little foolish to drive for two hours each way only to spend four hours or so wandering around a dusty Elizabethan village, but it's a Tradition with a capital T now for us--missing a year would feel almost blasphemous (according to the religion of nostalgia). Besides, we really wanted to take Eli, (we knew Isaac would neither particularly care nor remember it yet), both because we knew he'd really like it this year (our son who is so into knights and dragons and pirates and wizards), and because we want to inculcate the Tradition into him while he's still too young to know better.

We had a pretty good time overall--the weather was actually somewhat cool, and we got to see some old friends, albeit briefly since they were all distracted with, well, working, and we were distracted with kids. We had our necklaces restrung, and bought a bunch of random tchotchkes for both ourselves (I finally shelled out for one of those huge over the top velvet and ostrich feather pirate hats I've always coveted) and for Eli (he wanted to buy practically everything there, especially in the pirate booth). We played pistol-bows (which Eli remembered fondly from last year) and "dunk the raucous peasant in the water tank", and we got to eat our traditional Faire foods (turkey leg, baked potato, fruit ice, etc).

It was actually while we were getting our food that the most notable event of the day happened: Eli pointed at a sign on one of the booths and said to us, all proud of himself, "that says 'Pork Chop on a Stick.'" We both practically did double-takes--he had just read a pretty elaborate sentence! We were blown away. We asked him how he knew that, sure that it was some sort of half-guess on his part, he couldn't have really read that whole thing, could he? But sure enough, our boy's first "I can read" moment was "Pork Chop on a Stick." I'm so proud and excited that he's really reading…and so amused that it happened at Faire and with that particular phrase. I think this one is going down in Eli history along with the infamous "please do not staple Boba Fett in the head".

Tonight I went to Friday night services at the synagogue (I know, I know, all this Jewish stuff interspersed with Dungeons & Dragons…I'm well aware of the oddness of the juxtaposition) because they were saying a yahrzeit for Dr. Robert Gans, my Poppa. (It's been 2 years since he died. I still miss him.) I had originally hoped to go with my mom, but she had other plans she couldn't get out of. Luckily my friend Daphne came over for Shabbat dinner and services that night, so I didn't have to go alone. I didn't go last year, nor have I been remembering to actually purchase or light a traditional yahrzeit candle, but for some reason this year I thought it would be a comforting and appropriate remembrance to go to temple to honor my Poppa, so that's what I did.

It's been years (ok more like decades) since I've been to a Friday night service, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It turned out that it was a very quiet night (it was the Shabbat between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and there were no special events) and that there were really only about 20 or 30 people there. The service itself was short and thoughtful and I got a chance to think about my Poppa, so I’m glad I went. I think I prefer the night time services to the daytime ones (not that I've really been to a Saturday morning one recently either)--they seem somehow more potentially reflective and serious to me because they're in the dark. Anyway, now that I've been to a Friday night service, I don't have to be anxious about going to another, right? Right. Actually we have to go to at least one Friday night service a month now as part of our new Sunday School program that we're starting (this is one of those backstory posts that I haven't gotten to yet, but the gist is, we're trying out a new experimental "Sunday School for the whole family" concept through our synagogue), so I think I'll be getting more familiar with the concept soon--and for me, familiarity breeds comfort.

Well, tonight was our first get-together for the girls gaming group. We spent most of the night finishing up our characters (which of course took us awhile because we had to look up most everything--even those of us who were relatively experienced were playing different kinds of characters than usual), but after that we did actually get about an hour to play. I am happy to report that at least from my point of view, it seemed to go very well. I was worried about that typical first-session awkwardness and the potential dicey-ness of creating a plausible reason for a motley group of adventurers to join up, but it turned out just fine. Maybe it's something to do with that feminine tendency to be agreeable and helpful, or maybe my friends just took pity on my newbie DM-ness and went along with my obvious set-up, but it seemed pretty smooth. I found myself improvising character interactions and story points as I went along, and not only was that fun to do (I have a warm little sunray of hope that I might actually be good at this), but I don't think anyone even noticed. (I mean, uh, for those of you reading this who were there, of course I had that allllll planned out in the minutest detail, oh yes I did…that town was *supposed* to be called Townage!) So in that sense being a DM felt kind of like being a novel-writer, but messier, because it's in real-time (no revisions!) and with far more input from others.

Is it any different to be playing with all girls? Hard to tell, yet. Sure, there was plenty of chit-chat, baked goods and knitting around the gaming table, but then we have all that anyway in our other regular game session. I'm curious to see how it works out with future sessions--will there be a general aversion to combat? (Probably not--we're a bloodthirsty bunch, and frankly, whacking evil monsters is a good part of the fun of D&D.) Will there be more direct roleplay and less rule-mongering? More character-focused cooperative storytelling and less concern with whether or not what a character wants to do is allowable given a specific set of rules? I just don't know. Maybe it won't be any different at all, except for the obvious fact that there are different player personalities involved in this group.

Anyway, I definitely had a great time and I'm really looking forward to the next session. I still can't remember most of the rules, but hey, that's what the sourcebooks are for!

Tonight I spent all evening anxiously reading, taking notes and looking through boxes of figures, because I was preparing to don that geekiest of geek mantles, that near-sacred quasi-profession (no, not linux hacker, the other kind of geek):

I am about to be a Dungeon Master.

That's right, gentle readers, I've played Dungeons & Dragons (and other RPG systems) for probably something like 10 years now with Josh and friends (in addition to the times I originally played back when I was a young and impressionable pre-teen), but aside from a few brief attempts back in those pre-teen days, I have never been a Dungeon Master. I have never considered myself worthy of sitting at the head of the table behind the screen: there was so much to know, and I (the one with already severely impacted free time as it is) never seemed to have the time to really sit down and learn it all.

But for some reason about a month ago I got a big bug up my butt (so to speak) that someone had to start an all-girls gaming group, and I just couldn't let the idea go. So I pestered the 4 other girls I know that a) game and b) live within a half hour's drive and finally they all agreed to try a girls' game--but no one wanted to run it. And rather than give up my semi-subversively feminist idea, I wound up hearing myself say "ok, I'll run it. I'll just pick up a module or something, how hard could it be?" And although I definitely give myself full points for courage, that was possibly one of the dumber things I have ever agreed to do, because as I have been discovering, being a Dungeon Master is DAMN HARD. There are a loooooooot of rules to this game, and rather than only knowing the ones for the type of character you're playing, as the DM you have to know (or at least have a passable familiarity with) them all. And then there's the whole creative part (which actually isn't even the hard part for me, thank goodness, and at least I'm not creating my own adventure).

On the one hand, I'm really anxious because I want it to be fun, not just memorization work on my part and dull plug-and-play for the players. Luckily I'm pretty good at winging things and I think once we get started it'll just kind of move ahead under its own steam. Plus, this is a forgiving crowd, and they're willing to let me experiment on them/with them. The bright side (aka the other hand) is that I'm learning a lot and if nothing else I'll be a much better player after this, for sure. (Watch out Josh, I'm going to be an even bigger geek!) So overall, despite some general performance anxiety, I'm excited to try this next level of geekery. It's been obsessing me lately, in fact--which is a good sign: it means I might have found a new hobby/creative outlet (which of course I need like hole in head, but no matter, no matter). Here's hoping it goes well!

So Dri wanted to go bra shopping at Nordstrom's (where you go if you are done fooling around with all the other lingerie sellers in the world and want to be properly fitted and attended to) and asked if I'd go with her. Sure, I said, because honestly any excuse to spend an evening with your oldest bestest friend is a good one (and really, it's not like bra shopping is usually fun for me…its probably second only to swimsuit shopping as "most likely to make me detest my body" type of experience). So tonight we took the plunge (ha ha) and spent several hours in the Nordstrom's lingerie department being totally disabused of our previous fantasies of correct bra size by a very sweet, stick-thin young saleswoman.

Here's the part where it gets all girly so if you have a problem with that you might want to just move on to the next entry. Ready? Ok.

First, the background: I have always had a difficult time with bra shopping, mostly because I have quite large boobelehs (sorry for the Yiddish but I'm trying to avoid pervert Google searches), especially for a relatively petite person. Way back in the day pre-kids, I was somewhere around a 32 or a 34DD. And that always made bra shopping an unpleasant experience for me, because at least back in those days, there were really not too many bra choices for anything over a D cup, and even when there were, the combination of the relatively small rib cage size (32/34) and the relatively enormous cup size (DD) was especially difficult to find. So with occasional slightly more exciting exceptions, I have spent most of my life in white, beige or maybe black bras, usually of the non-frilly, underwire minimizer type. Of course hindsight is always 20/20, and I look back on those DD days as the "easy" days (not to mention the firmer, perkier days…sigh). Because what am I wearing right now? Well, after having Eli, I went up a both a band size and a cup size to a 36F, and then post-Isaac, I went up again (oh the unfairness of it all! I was really hoping all that nursing and subsequent drooping would at least have made me go *down* a bra size, not *up*) to a 38G, which is what I'm wearing as I'm sitting here typing. Honestly, although it's scary enough to be a G sized cup (I mean sheesh, did you even know they came that big?) the thing that depressed me more was the 38 band size, because what that meant was not just that my cup size had gotten bigger, but that my whole torso was fatter.

But fast forwarding to the present day, lo and behold! Things are different now…kind of. After taking one look at my current bra and my previous pathetic attempt at fitting myself, the Nordy's clerk said to me "you're clearly wearing the wrong size, let me measure you". And when she did, she pronounced me a 32H. Ok, 32: that's good, I feel less fat, yay. But….H??? Holy Goddess of Fertility, that's just….well, HUGE. Yes, I guess that's what H stands for: HUGE. The mind boggles. And even though it was helpful to know the correct size, I was still left with the same dilemma that I used to have back in the day: small band size combined with huge cup size makes it very difficult to find a bra in my size. In fact, this particular Nordstrom's (which apparently has a relatively small lingerie department compared to the stores in the City, to which I will have to hie myself ASAP) didn't have ANY bras in a 32H. Curses, foiled again!

But all is not lost! There are apparently a few new brands of bras out there (including Freya and Fantasie) made specifically for the humongous among us, and they even come in pretty colors and interesting fabrics! So at some point soon I hope to either take a field trip to another Nordstrom's or to hit the internet and get this whole bra situation properly, ah, supported. But at least I know where to start now.

Well, no blogging yesterday because the day was so full: first a quick stock up trip to the grocery store and then an all day trip to the zoo with the boys and the Armentas (well, the mamas took the kids while the dads stayed home and had an all-day gamer geekfest) which segued directly into a fabulous date night courtesy of my parents, who'd given Josh and I tickets to a play (and babysitting!) for his birthday. I must say that Jen and I kicked some major butt in the kid-wrangling department--we managed 4 kids of different ages and temperaments through exhibits, restaurant and rides and everyone ended up having had a pretty good time, despite a general lack of nappage for the younger ones. Ah me, how far I've come in my parenting skillz since those early days…I guess when I find myself marveling "how do those moms of 5 kids do it?" the answer is just "practice". (And caffeine, I'm sure it must have something to do with caffeine…have I mentioned that I'm still off coffee right now? Oh the agony…)

Today was just another manic Monday, made even yet more so by the fact that Josh had an early early morning plane to catch for a meeting down in Long Beach, and was gone all day and most of the evening. But everything was managed and nothing fell apart too badly, so I consider the day more of a success than a failure, even though I am now battling a ripper headache that sneers at puny little ibuprofen, and probably should quit staring at the tempting glowy screen and go to bed.

The rest of this week promises to be quite manic too, with something going on every night this week and all weekend long as well. So I think despite my best intentions of attacking some of that bloggy backlist, tonight is not the night.

Damn blogstipation, it's been killing me this last couple of weeks. I'm so backed up with so many blog posts about so many big events that have been going on, I can't possibly even smoosh them all together cleverly (or not) into one post. The usual excuses apply: super busy schedule (including 2 plane trips) and general work-parent-work-parent overwhelm, plus I've been sick (still!) and so exhausted by the end of the days during the week that I literally can't manage to put two sentences together, spoken or written. But now (finally) I am on antibiotics and other bonus asthma meds and am feeling marginally better. And that plus a quiet Saturday night on kid duty while Josh runs out to a friend's birthday party equals finally time to blog!

Let's see, I think I'll make myself a list of the things I could/should/might (or might not) blog about:

Back To School Night
Wrangling The Whole Extended Family to CO for a Family Wedding
A Day Trip to LA and the Local Color I Found There
Isaac at 18 Months
Hanging Out With Old Friends
Sunday School, Fun For the Whole Family!
Now We Are Patrons Of The Arts: A Tale of Stained Glass Windows
Missing Poppa: Thoughts On the Cycle of Life

Yup, that's a pretty big and overwhelming list. I do want to write about all those things, but I think for tonight I'll do what they recommend you do when you're facing a big scrapbooking project (oh yeah, scrapbooking, I seem to vaguely recall that hobby….sigh…): start with what's current and worry about working your way back later.

So what's current? Well, today was Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish new year. Josh and I went to services at our synagogue last night and this morning. (Even though it's now been a year since we joined the synagogue, I still feel a bit weird saying "our synagogue". But more on this in a bit.) Since we got babysitters for both evening and morning, we actually got to pay attention to and participate wholeheartedly in the services--and let me tell you, I am grateful for that kind of time, it's rare in the life of parents with small children. We weren't rushed, we had nowhere else we were supposed to or wanted to be, we were able to just focus on the closing out of one year and the beginning of another, in the company of a huge community of people all doing the same thing. I felt like I got from services what I was supposed to: a pause, a chance to reflect and re-turn, to consider once again some of the big spiritual questions (those persistently pesky ones like "why are we here" and "who am I" and "what kind of life do I want, and how do I get there?").

More specifically, this year during services (unlike many a past year in my life), I didn't find myself bored, disconnected, or trying to amuse myself by focusing on anything but what was happening so I could just get through the required observance of ritual and go home. This year I connected with what was happening, more often than not. Even without the wake-up call of the shofar (it was Shabbat so they didn't blow it, which is too bad because I love that particular symbolic noise for a variety of reasons), I was paying attention. Maybe this has to do with the beginnings of a sense of ownership--of my own Jewishness, of my bona fide membership in this particular community of Jews, and of these particular rituals (brought on by repetition but cemented by enough rounds of actually paying attention). Maybe here as I look down the tunnel towards the end of my thirties, I'm just finally growing up (or at least into the next stage of adulthood). Whichever way you slice it, I find myself sliding slowly (oh so slowly) into an acceptance of, and even an anticipation of, a more spiritual, more Jewish life. The steps have been small--regularly celebrating Shabbat on Friday nights, the occasional holiday or event at the synagogue, a willingness to look at my own issues around "Jewish stuff" and not let the fear win. But they're there. I look back over the last year, and that's what I see: baby steps towards a more spiritually connected life.

Last night in his sermon, one of the rabbis basically threw down the gauntlet and asked us all to take on the practice of one mitzvah in this coming year, one way of deepening our spiritual practice. He said, among other things (and I'm paraphrasing wildly here…it was actually a very witty and well crafted sermon and I am not doing the whole thing justice at all), "I don't care which of the 613 mitzvot you select, but pick one and stick to it. See what happens." Now, there's a lot of them that I'll never be able to do, whether because they aren't possible in this day and age (e.g. not selling a Hebrew servant as a slave) or because I just don't believe in them (e.g. interfaith marriage or circumcision). And a good bunch of them are just plain picky or irrelevant, not to mention potentially offensive. But there are a whole bunch more that I certainly could pay more attention to, and here are a random few I think I might try this year:

Give charity according to one's means
Celebrate the festivals
Appear in sanctuary on the festivals
Do not bear grudges
Learn torah and teach it

So there it is, for the record. May you all have a sweet new year, a better year than the one before it--a year of life and of living, full of everything you need and most of what you want. L'Shanah Tovah.

Biiiiiiiiiiiig sigh, as I plop down here in my comfy writing chair (the big black Eames chair I inherited from my Poppa) at the end of a long, long day. I'm back from a long weekend of swirly curly chaos at my brother and sister-in-law's new house in Chico, during which our heroine (that's me) battled the forces of fatigue, phlegm, and family craziness and emerged, once again, victorious (and also very very glad of the life and the nuclear family that I have). It was a sort of combination of housewarming and my niece Zinnia's 3rd birthday party, so my parents carpooled up in the minivan with us and my sister-in-law's parents, sister and nephew also showed up, and we had a weekend full of activity. The kids got to swim and run around and play with each other (Eli once again experienced both the joy and the frustration inherent in his idolization of his older cousin). We went to a very cool wild animal rescue facility and saw ocelots and tigers and a 12-foot albino Burmese python and all sorts of other cool things. We even squeezed in a quick game of D&D. And of course we all got caught up in the endless logistics involved in planning every meal, every trip in the car, and every detail of every group activity. I'm exhausted. And it didn't help that the under-the-weather feeling I've been having for the last week seems to have finally developed into a full-blown chest cold. Gluh. Josh woke up sick today too--with a fever, not a chest cold, so we'll see what happens with the kids. (Though Isaac has already been phlegmy and coughing over this last week or so too so this all probably started with him, the little Petri dish.)

But anyway my niece is seriously the dang cutest thing in the world and it was great to spend a good chunk of family time together with everyone; in between all the kid wrangling and food prep and event planning were moments of quiet, everyday grace, where everyone was just doing their various things and nothing was falling apart and it just felt right, like it does when your family, all those people you love most in the world, are all around you and you're safe and you're home.