Cafe 91101

I think I've found "Cafe John." It's the cafe table and chairs in the cafe area of our local supermarket.

I have to do is ask them where they got theirs.

And speaking of writing, I'm starting a six-month hiatus from Wordos. I've attended the critique table for about six years and chaired the table for about four. It will be refreshing to not have to chair the Wordos critique table for a while. I plan to use the evenings as scheduled time where I absolutely must write.

In slightly different news, Writers of the Future is having their workship in Pasadena.

Now all I have to do is find cafes (and restaurants) in 91101.

Lawncare Adventures

We discovered Arthur's slightly deflated soccer ball with a hole burnt through it. The outside plasticy part was vaporized and the fabric underneath had a charred hole in it.

It had been left outside in a large metal bowl. I think the hole was caused by the curve of the metal bowl focusing the sun's rays onto the soccer ball. When I picked the ball up the motion forced air out of the hole. Time to write a warning to The Fearful Parent.

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Grandma Mary and Mark got Arthur a harmonica when they went to the MET last week. So of course I was playing it during a pause in our yard work. As I was picking out Papagino's song on it, Mark said, "It's Handel's Harmonica Hoedown!"

"Actually," I said, "It's Motzart."

Any further reply was drown out by our neighbors across the street and three houses down, who began to share KZEL's rock broadcast with the area.

These are the same folks who mow their lawn in two inch pumps (which I'm in awe of).

Death in the Garden

Today has been gardening day.

Mark chastised me for saying, "And now you will die," to some slugs and snails that formerally had been living on my miniture rose's flowerpot before I stomped up and down on them in front of Arthur.

"Now it will be hard for me to send that e-mail to the president of Continental for showing those movies on our flights," he said.

I think I've spent something like $20 on sunflower seeds two months ago. I planted them in peat pots. I'm not sure what was going on, but only about half (roughly ten) germinated. I placed three in the ground and the damn gastropods ate them. So I placed five in yogurt containers to grow larger (and presumably harder for the mucus-ones to eat). In the process of waiting for the remaining sunflowers to get big enough to transplant, the sun withered them.

I have a feeling that I'm going to need a laser-guided slug denfense system.

Despite his cold symptoms, Arthur has been running around in high-energy mode, and he's discovered how to turn on (and off and on and off) the water spigot.

Mark continues to garden dispite the pollen rash on his arms.

June Madness Begins

Must.

Groom.

House.

And.

Yard.

This is harder than it sounds.

When we got back to the Willamette Valley the pollen was really bad -- Mark went on some allergy meds. Arthur spent Tuesday through Thursday in some other time zone and persisted in waking up at 5:30 AM and starting his morning nap at 8:30 AM. I thought I was reacting to the pollen, too; but on Thursday afternoon when it was 80F and I was wearing two shirts to stay warm I knew I had an airlines cold (or else I was having a really interestnig reaction to antihistamines). Friday evening Arthur's nose started running, too, so I'm pretty sure he has my cold. Mark has been wonderful about letting me sleep a lot -- and our friends the Wilds win some sort of award for taking Arthur away Thursday night.

Arthur's birthday signals the start of the crazy season when it seems a major event happens every fourth day. It's Father's Day, Solstice, Gay Pride, the Full Moon, and someone always visits for or from a wedding.

Muriel isn't too much of an irritant, but she continues to be needy.

Security Doesn't Want to Know

We had a quiet morning as we prepared for our flight home. Mark, Melora, Kristina, and Melissa took Arthur to a park; he was bummed that there wasn't a train there. I folded laundry and watched Mary play a game called "Zuma" on the computer.

This time the airport trip was much less frantic (it helps to leave on time). Once again my carry-on bag caused a stir. A security guy pulled it from the X-ray machine and I helped him go through it (all the time I held Arthur). It was odd to watch his latex-gloved hands unzipping all six of the bag's compartments. He figured that the tarot cards looked odd on the X-ray -- either that or the camera and it's batteries looked odd. I wasn't sure if the cards themselves looked like a metal box or if the metallic threads in the scarf they were wrapped in looked like wires or what. I assured him that he could unwrap the cards -- I'd wrapped them well so it took him a few moments -- and when he did the Eight of Wands showed up. "Oh," I said, "You should be getting a message soon."

"No, stop," he said in his Brooklyn accent. "Don't tell me. When I was young, some friends of mine were always trying to get me to see some Gypsy. 'Oh, come on,' they'd say, 'she's really good.' And I always told them, 'If she was really bad I'd go see her, 'cause I don't wanna know.'"

We didn't take Arthur's car seat with us onto the plane, and that worked a lot better. For one thing, when he was seated he was unable to see the PG-13 movie playing.

We got to sleep in our own beds 1 AM West Coast Time.

Arthur woke up fairly early, but he's napping now. It will be a long afternoon, I think.

While we were gone, our roses and irises began to bloom. Muriel isn't quiet so irritating, but she is still needy.

But Don't Eat It...

We had a stay-at-home day at Grandma Mary's House.

Melora pulled out a recipe for play dough. Arthur got into making it and to playing with it. We had to remind him a lot not to eat it (it has unsweetened Kool-Aide in it). Veronica came for a visit, and she enjoyed playing with Arthur and his new dough.
We ate outside.

I download a modular-programming package called "Scratch" for Kristina to play with.

Mark worked on stain glass pigs. It's a pattern that his Mom works on; but she doesn't paint as well as Mark does. The catch is that Mark gets bored painting the same thing over and over again, so one of the pigs became a pirate pig (with an eyepatch and a mermaid tattoo).

Today is our last full day in Suffern -- tomorrow we're going off to the airport around 2 PM.

As we sat down for a picnic snack in the garage (set up by Kristina) we recalled what our high points of the visit had been. Mine was navigating from Suffern to the MET and back (with a side trip to Maison du Chocolat) and back without getting lost. Mellisa's (and Mary's) was the pool party at Matt and Joanie's house. Arthur's was the train ride at the park.

My writing (beyond this blogging) has been non-existent. I did read a little from my new book on hieroglyphs. And I did watch a few new shows.

Girl Talk

I read in the NYT that folks who recall the past as if they were in a first person narrative are more likely to be affected by those memories than if they were recalled in third-person. However, if they imagine the future as third person, they're more likely to follow through.

I'll have to use that in my stories.

Last night Arthur didn't sleep well. He's been drooling so much that he's given himself some acne. When we got home from the movie, Arthur had taken over the Hannah Montana Memorial Bed; so I slept on the couch.

Mary had had some caffeineated coffee with Mark at the MET, so she was up until about 2:30 AM.

I woke up around 3 AM because Arthur was crying. I stumbled to Kristina's room, where he and Mark were sleeping. Well. In theory. The actuality was that Mark was trying to get Arthur to fall asleep in his crib because he was thrashing around too much to be able to safely sleep on the bed. Arthur was standing in his crib crying "Out. Please. Out. Pleeease" and probably waking the house. When I got in, Mark had a nest for himself on the ground next to Arthur's crib. Since this had been going on long enough to wake me up, I figured Arthur had been crying long enough. So I picked him up, rocked him, and crooned the "Farscape" theme (first season). Mark almost woke him when he said, "Aw" -- but I managed to get him into his crib with a minimum of crying.

Some deity answers my secret prayers: the Damn Hamster develops a twitch; he'll still sing, but you can't make him stop dancing. With ill-concealed delight I watch him writhe on the floor under a lamp table. Eventually, his batteries will die.


Saturday evening, we drove to Uncle Matt (Mary's brother) and Aunt Joanie's house. Matt and Joanie have a swimming pool, so we all got in. We got to see the Rasidek's: Nick, Laura (Matt and Joanie's daughter), and their triplet girls, Alexandria, Rebecca, and Michealia. The girls loved Arthur and taught him the word "bubblebutt."

And now that I think of it, Kristina taught him to sing "Shake Your Bootie."

Kumbaya, That's Insane!

Today was Mark's day without Arthur; so he's taken his Mother to the MET.

Arthur's been waking up at 3 AM -- this morning was no exception, and we fed him a banana and gave him a drink of water because he missed his bedtime snack. The only problem was that he really woke up afterwards.

Mark was great and took him out of the bedroom to watch "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" around 4 AM. They fell back to sleep (I guess) around 6:30.

Kristina has no school today, so we spent a quiet morning watching more "Chitty" and then I managed to get Arthur to take a nap. He looked pretty glassy eyed and seemed kind of loopy, so I imagine a long nap will be helpful for him. Tomorrow is another big day with lots of relatives, so I'd like him to have a day of rest.

Kevin, Melora's son, arrived in the afternoon. Arthur spent most of the first hour blowing Kevin away with words like "pungent" and "Kumbaya", and correctly supplying the synonym "insane" for Kevin's "crazy." Then Arthur head-butted Kevin on the nose (on purpose); since Kevin is a boxer, he was impressed.

Friday evening Melora, Kevin, and I went to see the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest movie. It was interesting and fun and grim. I actually had a hard time hearing a lot of the dialog because there were so many explosions, loud waves, and music.

Since I haven't seen the second movie, I had to imagine that I was watching an inexplicable French movie and just let the characters and plot fall into place (it helped that Kevin explained some key points).

I found myself analyzing the plot. I didn't know precisely why the goddess character did what she did at the end -- but it looked cool. And near the end I thought the plot was being "the pirate wanna-bes will love this" driven. But it was fun.

Road Tour

We drove to New Paltz for Megan's birthday. Megan and Morgan (and their two sons, Marley and Maceio) live in a cute, high ceilinged cottage. Morgan is a carpenter and Megan teaches trapeze.

We hung out with Megan and the boys. Arthur liked playing in the kid pool and sandbox. Megan and I had some short chats about strategies for raising two-year-olds.

After a while the bugs found me so I retired inside. I read tarot for Megan and Veronica. (And for the record: no, not every reading I did this week had the Three of Swords or the Nine of Swords in it.)

Just before we left, Mark and I had to sing the theme song to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." Since we've seen scenes from the movie about two hundred times in the last year it was easy for us to sing harmonies and orchestra flourishes to an appreciative crowd.

We left around 8 PM so Arthur could get some sleep. He's getting a little worn out meeting people.

I notice that the Damn Hamster is sitting on top of the refrigerator.

Doing the MET

It's ditch the family day. I wake up at 6:20 AM (because Arthur is kicking me in the stomach). After a fevered night of tossing and turning, wondering if I have enough battery charge for my camera batteries, if my clothes will be unwrinkled by the morning shower, or if I will wind up in some horrible, dark, shady corner of New York City (The Capital of Big Evil Cities), I'm awake and ready to go.

After a quick (for me) toilette, I down a bowl full of cereals and milk, dress, hunt for a belt, and am driven by Mary to the Shortline bus stop.

There's a short moment when I think that the bus I'm on is going to go to the George Washington Bridge and that I'll get to the Port Athority around 1 PM -- but it takes the Lincoln Tunnel and I'm ready to hunt for the subway entrance. I overshoot it by a sub-basement.

Since there's a friendly subway lady helping folks with the FunPass kiosks, I ask her the best way to get to the 6 (and the MET). Her instructions work (take the S to the transfer point to the 6).

I call Mark just before plunging into the MET's depths.

First, it's the new Roman and Greek Sculpture Court. I'd have to say that the piece I'll remember the most is the marble stele of the woman with the huge hair.

I put my contact lenses in in the new sculpture court. It's sad but true; my vision is getting middle aged, so if I wear my contacts I have to hold my camera a short distance away to see the LCD viewfinder, but if I wear my glasses, distant art is blurry. I don't know what's in the air here -- probably a mix of construction dust and cologne -- but my right contact started flipping out a few hours later and I finally took them out again.



I enjoyed some of the Roman and Greek statuary, but I found myself comparing it to Egyptian figures. The Greco-Roman stuff is nice, but it has a mass-produced feel to it that lacks the sensuality of some of the nicer Egyptian statues.

Mmmmmm.... Egyptian sculpture.

Upstairs from the new court is a study room with touch screen stations that allow you to locate items in the forty-some cases. You can select by time-period and material (or see a list of all the cases).

I saw a gallery filled with fine carvings. Probably the oddest was a rosary of medallions that had knights and priests on one side and skeletons on the other; it ended in large beads that were half face, half skull. There was also a skeletal Death on a skeletal horse. And lots of crucifixions. Lots.

11:28 AM: I'm poised with about fifty other museum patrons to enter the Cafeteria. We're all hoping to beat the hordes of school children rushing about the galleries like Visigoths. I could be dining in one of the Museum's overpriced cafes, but I'm cheap. The gates open! Uttering a "Moo!" that is ignored by the other patrons, I surge into the cafeteria with everyone else. For the record, I had a thrifty lunch of poached salmon, asparagus, potato & and Coke.

Noon: Back into the fray!

When I go to the MET I look for griffins, bronze carts and wagons, medusa cameos, fantastical monsters (sphinxes, fauns, and dragons) and I spend time in the Egyptian, Near East, and Mediaeval wings and the sculpture garden. The sculpture garden was closed -- but I didn't figure that out until after I spent 20 minutes trying to get through the American and Portrait wings. So was part of the Egyptian wing, so I didn't get to see my diadem.

They've moved things around, so I had many pleasant experiences finding familiar art in new places and new art in old places.

I kept wandering into galleries about thirty seconds before tour groups -- this could be either good or bad depending on the average age of the group. The kids tended to be loud and squirrelly; the elderhostel groups were large and were led by a docent.

As I wandered through galleries and saw familiar objects, I took some pictures to try to improve my selection of photographs. The banner in the Mediaeval Wing frustrated me once again -- I always think I have an image of a banner of the Virgin Mary in red and it always comes out blurry. I've given up on trying to get a clear image of signet rings because the glare always confuses the auto focus. The other image that eludes my auto focus is the Egyptian frieze of a "Ball Playing Ceremony" where a pharaoh is tossing a ball at the feet of a goddess (probably Hathor). The composition has the goddess's single breast the same size as the ball.

The Special Exhibition, Venice and the Islamic World, left me cold: there was one cool minbar tile mosaic and the rest was portraits and fabrics. The docent wanted to be my best new friend (I think I was supposed to ask her out).

The exhibit Poiret: King of Fashion was . . . interesting; but I wanted something a little more oomphy -- although I must have been a model in a past life because most of the dresses looked like something I would wear. The most educational part of the exhibit was watching how he sculpted bolts of fabric into dresses. The most entertaining part of that exhibit was learning that he'd throw private parties for scores of people and demand that they wear his clothing designs.

3:30 Back in the cafe for another Coke and a cookie.

4:50 In the gift shop for SHOPPING! After looking at expensive, age-inappropriate gift candidates for Arthur, I go downstairs. I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing sadder than a bibliophile on a tight budget in the MET bookstore. I could easily spend $400 on Very Nice Art Books there. I managed to purchase a book on (surprise) Egyptian Hieroglyphs (leaving behind two sale books on Egyptian Calligraphy and Perfume in the Time of Anthony and Cleopatria) just before the museum staff herded everyone out of the building.

When I got out of the MET I gave Larry H a call to see if he wanted anything from Maison du Chocolat. We chatted for a few moments; he said he really enjoyed seeing Mark and me in parent mode. Then the poor thing had to endure a John non sequitour as I caught sight of some griffins outside a brownstone.

I managed to retrace my route back to the Port Authority. The weirdest thing to happen all day happened as I was buying my return bus ticket to Suffern. A guy, maybe a few years older than me, slammed right into me. I'd noticed him out of the corner of my eye about twenty feet away, walking along the wall the ticket booth was set into. I had my wallet in one hand (I'd been counting dollar bills for the fare). I didn't go down and I managed to hang onto my wallet.

I wound up facing away from the ticket booth, facing him. "Oh my, sir," he said. "I'm sorry; are you alright?" His tone sounded more calculated than conciliatory. He held out his hands as if he wanted to help steady me. Maybe he was drunk, or needed the wall for navigation. Maybe he did want to help me, but I recalled a story from some friends in Mexico who were "helped" in a similar way by a pickpocket.

I watched his hands and I probably gave him a "don't mess with me" scowl. He stopped in mid-step, I assured him I was fine and he went his way.

Evil Big City: Zero; John: Four.

Talking Things

We were supposed to wake up early, but Arthur didn't stir until after 9AM. We must have worn him out yesterday in New York.
Some time just before 9, I stumbled out of the "Hannah Montana Memorial Bedroom" and followed the sounds of 80's rock music to the rec room. It was Richard Simons, and Mary was going through her routine.

Frank, a high school friend of Mark's, and his wife, Lynne, visited. They graciously brought Arthur a talking toy truck, named Mator, from the Pixar movie, "Cars." I lost count, but I think it says over twenty-five different phrases.

Tueday evening, Melora and I went down into the glass shop in the basement and Melora helped me to slump glass in a mini kiln. After agonizing over several pattern ideas that were beyond my ability to cut glass, I made a cute little bird panel.

I find the Damn Hamster and hide it behind a collection of cleaning products in a high shelf.

Arthur in NYC

6 AM: Arthur wakes up. I think. Mark was a sweety and woke up with him.

8:30 AM: At about the time I'm thinking to myself, "Thank God that damn musical hamster isn't out," Mellisa is digging it out of some box. This thing sings "Girl, You Really Got Me Now." and dances. It's loud. I hate it.

10:00 AM: While visiting Melora's work, Arthur apparently reads a co-worker's name tag. "Tina!" Probably he either is wondering where Kristina is or else he hear Melora greet Tina. None-the-less, by this time an entire foyer full of Melora's co-workers is collectively reeling at Arthur's reading ability.

Noon-ish: We arrive at St. John The Divine's cathedral in New York City. The stone carving around doors includes a kabalistic Tree of Life and naked angel wrestling. The fountain in the courtyard is a giant bronze crab on top of which numerous bronze giraffes fondle a muscular Archangel Michael with their necks over the naked decapitated body of Satan.

The fountain used to have fire and water spouts, but it's been planted as a garden and a squirrel now lives inside the crab's body (it has to leap onto the claw holding Satan's head to enter).

We went into the cathedral, which is still being restored from a large fire. Mark gave Arthur the head of a recorder to re-create our Ole-Ole Dining Experience. The little chapels were interesting in their variety; I particularly liked a tile floor.

We met with Larry H and went to Central Park. One of the first things Larry said was, "John, you look great; have you lost weight?" This is about the fourth time someone's said this to me -- I guess I must have looked bloated last time I visited. Arthur and I ran around the park; he wanted to play in the sandpit where various shirtless, sweaty, fit guys were playing volleyball.

Then we went to the Central Park Zoo. Arthur really liked the chains fencing off the walkways, and the water in the sea lion tank, and the manhole covers (except when he lost a straw through one of its holes). Arthur also really liked the clock: every half hour bronze monkeys strike a large bell on top of the clock tower and then a parade of musical instrument holding animals, including a bear, a giraffe, penguins process underneath the clock.

We liked the decor of the zoo, so one thought for our back yard is to construct some columns with rings for a canopy.

We had a great time with Larry. After the zoo, Arthur fell asleep, so we were able to have dinner at Cafe Motzart.

Call the Police

I woke up (underneath the gaze of Hannah and the Care Bears) before Arthur (who slept really late).

Kristina, Mellisa, Mark, Arthur and I went to a local park and ran around. I managed to leave my bag (with my wallet, my cell phone, clie, iPod, my tarot cards, my Big Book of Art) in the park's parking lot.

We went to the store, and didn't discover my bag was gone until we got home. Mark and I hopped into a car and drove to the park. Mark remembered that he had his cell phone, so I called my cell phone.

"John ... Burridge's phone," said a man's voice on the other end.

"Hi," I said. "This is John. Where are you?"

It was a nice policeman and he had my bag. Luckily, he had driven into the parking lot where I left it before anyone couuld call it in as a bomb threat. On the way to retrieve my bag from friendly Officer Mitchel, Mark and I discussed proximity alarms for my bag and wallet. I've decided that I always make these kinds of mistakes when I'm in a new environment.

Megan, Morgan, Marlie, and Masio visited from New Paltz. Arthur is in between Marlie and Masio age-wise, and they played together fairly well.

Adjusting to Time Zones

We slept most of the morning in the "Hannah Montana Memorial Guest Room." For the next week I will wake underneath the gaze of Hanna Montana (a sort of 90's Annette Funichelo) and a host of Care Bears. Arthur and Kristina played well together during the afternoon.

Then we went to visit Veronica at Ole Ole, the restaurant she works at. Arthur flirted with the waitresses, and we decided to eat there. Mark let Arthur play with Melora's car key chain. So dinner conversations in the entire restaurant stopped when Arthur figured out how to use her safety whistle.

When we went back to Mark's Mom's house, I got sucked into the SciFi channel, and saw the penultimate, first, second and third episodes of "Heros." OK, it was after 1 AM when I went to sleep (buy hey, that's only 11 PM west coast time).

Flying to Suffern

I misheard Mark when he said when we were going to leave. So we ended up leaving for the airport an hour later than we should have.

Luckily, we managed to get curbside bag check and through security quickly. We thought for sure that Arthur's applesauce, bananas, and diaper stuff would cause a problem. Nope. It was my carry-on -- I'm guessing it was the camera, batteries, and metal pencil case.

We took off at 10 PM. Arthur was the best baby on the plane. The worst baby on the plane was a cranky six month old who was angry at her parents for bringing her onto the plane.

Arthur mostly sat in his chair. OK. He kicked the back of the seat in front of him and tried to unlock the tray-table with his toes. He refused to go to sleep, and tried climbing up his seat. Finally he had a mini-melt down and collapsed on our laps. This didn't prevent him from kicking me in the pancreas.

Arthur slept through the violent, sex-filled movie and the rough landing at 3 AM (our time). I don't think Mark slept at all. I always forget that the night is shorter when one flies east.