A Note From The Grammar Police

Tomorrow, the New Year begins. Tonight is New Year's Eve. As in the eve of the new year, you know, the eve belonging to the New Year. The 'year' in  New Year's Eve is possessive, not plural. We are only celebrating one New Year. You may celebrate two years, as in ringing out the old and ringing in the new, but there is only one New Year.

May your NEW YEAR'S EVE celebration be festive and fun, and may everyone have a happy NEW YEAR!

Before and After

Remember when I said it was going to be cold? It is...see?

It was wildly windy and pouring rain all night, and we had snow on the mountains this morning. There was even a point in the day when the rain looked a little lighter than rain. Almost like snow. Apparently it did snow up at the boss' house. {{brrr}}

This is just a few hours later. Bright blue skies and sunshine. I still want a blankie and some hot cocoa though.

Airplane Museum

We can't really get away with having a new visitor here without going to the Airplane museum. Last time, we didn't think about the fact that to tour the boneyard on the base we need ID and Mom didn't have her driver's license and got stuck digging in the sand on Mars with Nicco while Dad and I rode the bus around the base. This time, I made sure that Papi and Mamie had their passports so nobody would miss the tour.  We got there just in time for the last tour of the day, but alas, it was sold out. We all missed it. Next time...

I'm running out of things to say about this place. They did rearrange things a bit, and had a step ladder next to this plane so that you could get up close and look inside the cockpit, which was new and cool for Nicco. They also added some vending machines placed sporadically throughout the museum, inside and outside. They also added a restaurant, which I think is a great idea. If you do both the museum and the base tour, you can be there for quite a while. Last time with Mom and Dad, we survived on cheese and crackers, m&ms and coke.

In the control tower...the airplane that you could climb into was no longer there. Nicco liked to be in the control tower and "talk" to the pilot in the other plane. He was pretty disappointed that the plane wasn't there. I was not.

Nicco's favorite aiplane

Papi, Mamie, and Patrice in the outside part of the museum.

Playing peek-a-boo with Papa

And this is how you do the limbo...you just duck under the stick.

Flight simulator

Digging in the dirt on Mars.

It is always impressive to see all the military planes in one spot like that. Being near the base we also get treated to flyovers sometimes when we visit. I wish that my in-laws would have been able to see the boneyard, but I'm not sure I care enough to go back to try again. Besides, it's going to be cold for the next few days!

Fun with Frankie

I had some small anxiety and fears that Nicco would be a bit overwhelming to the little cat. He loves animals so much, but they don't always understand his love (right, Gary?). He has a habit of putting his face right up in the face or belly of whatever animal he happens to be loving on, shakes his head and says things like "I love you so much...ooh I love you love you love you." I was hoping that getting a small kitten would help, so that the cat would be accustomed to Nicco's affection from the beginning. In the worst case, I hoped that she would befriend me most of all so that I could at least mediate and intervene for Nicco. Mostly I was just hoping that the cat wouldn't hate the boy.

As expected, her first day was spent in terror, cowering in corners and hiding behind or under the couch. When she did venture out, Nicco would run up to her, with his hands stretched out to grab her and squealing or yelling in excitement. Nicco needed a little training too.

The day after Christmas, little miss Frankie toured the house, smelling all the corners and all the people. She wasn't frightened of us anymore, and in fact, has become quite an attention whore. She's very playful and very loving (yay!), even with my somewhat wildly affectionate son.

She lets Nicco snuggle her, and even approaches him sometimes on her own.

Here, he was playing games on his new laptop. I missed the perfect picture just moments before I snapped this one. He was explaining the game he was playing to his pet, and asking her questions. She was sitting up looking right at him, as if she were actually listening and comprehending what he was saying to her.

And, they have a game:

Now I just need to convince Nicco that the catbox is his job.

Merry Christmas

The night before Christmas is the big dinner in the French tradition. Mamie and Patrice (and a little extra helper) made a traditional buche de noel for dessert.

Pretty, and delicious!

Before dinner, we had an aperitif of smoked salmon on crackers and shrimp cocktail with home made mayo. (yum) My in-laws also brought some foie gras, but Patrice ate it too fast to get a picture (wink). We played a French card game (I'm not doing too bad, considering I'm just learning and all the witty repartee during the game is in French).

We promised Nicco that he could see the lights in the neighborhood every night until Christmas, so while the Chefs put the finishing touches on our dinner of duck breast, home-made pasta, and mushroom sauce (again, yum) I took the boy out for a quick ride.

After dinner, we tracked Santa via NORAD and when we saw that he was getting closer, Nicco made a path of bows leading from the front door to the tree (we don't have a chimney, see, and Santa needs to know where to go), then put on his new sock monkey pajamas, and nearly passed out from excitement:

He said good-night and scurried off to bed, promising not to get up no matter what, because Santa only comes to houses where the children are sleeping.

In the night, The Jolly Old Elf put a whole slew of presents under the tree, left us a few notes with instructions, and changed the path so it led to the garage.

Nicco was pretty excited about his new tool, but realizing it is somewhat dangerous, he said to his Papa "Maybe it is for you first."

He liked opening all the gifts and being the distributor.

One of the notes from Santa said to open his sock last, so we came down to just a pile of presents that included a kitty tower, box, food, bed, litter, scooper, and a couple of kitty toys. We asked him what he thought about those presents and he said "These are all for a cat. I think Santa should have brought me a cat." We read the note that said "follow the path." When he opened the door, there was our fuzzy little buddy in her cage. Nicco's eyes and mouth widened, and not quite knowing what to do, (he couldn't cuddle her, as she was in her cage) he exclaimed "I love you!"

The note also said that the elves had been taking special care of the kitten for Nicco, her name is Frankie, and he needs to be sure to take care of all her needs every day.

Nicco's not the only one to love on our new addition.

Papi and I got matching hats, yee haw!

Besides Frankie, I think this is the boy's favorite gift.

Merry Christmas one and all! I hope your days were as fun and exciting as ours, and as full of blessings as well.

Walkabout

Papi goes on walkabouts. It worries me a little. Not a lot, but enough to have mentioned it to my husband. See, the thing is that Papi can't sit still. He must be doing something...working, walking, something. Most days he gets up and goes into the garage or out in the yard to either work on or discover some little project that he can take care of. I should have taken before and after pictures of my yard and garage...Papi has been quite a busy little bee. Anyway, he spends so much time in the garage or the yard that if he were to disappear, it could easily be hours before anyone would notice. One day he came inside all sweaty (not unreasonable, considering he was "working in the yard" in the 85 degree southern Arizona sun) and told us he pumped up the bike tires and took a little ride. When we went to swim, he pointed out several places he went on his ride. It surprised me a little how far he went.

When I told Patrice about his dad's adventuring, he said "Just make sure that he takes your phone with him. All it would take is for some drunk loser to run off the road..." So we had a discussion about keeping Papi safe in this unfamiliar neighborhood, where he doesn't even speak the language. After our little talk, Patrice laid down the law and told Papi he's not allowed to leave without the phone. Predictably, Papi huffed and puffed and pooh-poohed the advice. Also predictably, Mamie gave him a small smack-down. Apparently, she has given him the same advice, with similar results. The big difference being that back home, if something happened, his home and family would be easy to identify. Not so much here.

All that leads me to these pictures he took of my neighborhood on one of his recent walkabouts.

This is the entrance to our neighborhood from the main road.

The lovely desert landscape, also at the main road entrance to the neighborhood.

A view of the neighborhood.

This is how Arizonans decorate for Christmas.

A falcon.

Biosphere 2, Part 2

Here are some more pictures from our visit to the Biosphere. I stole them from Papi. He got some better shots than I did, like this one of my happy, charming boy. If you need a giggle, make the picture big so you can see his face. I tell ya.

Malachite is a famous and very popular semi-precious stone. It is named for the Greek word for "mallow," a green herb. Its banded light and dark green designs are one-of-a-kind, and give it a unique ornamental quality unlike that of any other stone. The light and dark green bands are so distinctive that malachite maybe one of the most easily recognized minerals by the general public. These boulders with malachite veins are the main reason we got our special tour, I think. Patrice's friend is the landscaper who hauled, moved, and placed these boulders at the site. He met Clark working on this project (perhaps others.)

Malachite up close. Pretty.

Nicco, being silly. Totally rare. This never happens. What a lucky shot. (sarcasm off)

Fossils

I like this picture by the "ocean." It gives a nice perspective of the whole indoors.

Down the narrow spiral staircase to the basement, on the way to the lung.

The echo-y tunnel

The huge and enormous disc in the lung. Huge. Enormous. 17,000 tons. Can you imagine? It's really insane. And there you have it.

Biosphere 2

Patrice knows people who know people. One of the people he knows, knows the director (or something) of the Biosphere 2 (in case you didn't know, like me, what biosphere 1 is, it's the Earth.) We got the "cook's tour" of the facility. I have to admit, this was never on the top of my list of things to do and places to go, but it's hard to pass up an insider's view. Clark, who led our private tour, was very smart, engaging, personable, and even made science interesting to me.

The place is huge. Even for a non-engineer it is an impressive structure. It was built in the 80s (I had in my head that it was earlier...it seems like such a hippie project) and the original idea was to replicate life and systems that exist on earth in a self contained environment that could be transferred to another planet. The original crew had a 2-year mission, because that is how long it takes to travel to Mars. After the first mission and the NASA program ended, the biosphere was converted from a sealed environment to a semi-sealed environment. They continue to study each of the systems, the soil, water, plants, etc. to try to replicate climate changes on earth in order to predict, study, and resolve some environmental problems we face. After a little bit of tiptoeing around, it didn't take long to realize Clark was not a cuckoo lefty environmentalist global warming zombie nutjob. It was a relief. Then again, I think Patrice and I would have had some fun with him if he were...

This is the living quarters for the first crew. Pretty small. We learned that they had supplies for about 3 months and after that, they had to live off what they could produce. They had some animals like goats and chickens, and I think that when they started they were living off of about 1200 calories a day. But as time went by, the animals didn't last and they ended up living on 400 calories a day. There was a picture of 3 of them sitting together and Clark said "that's when they looked good." They were skinny hippies. He said that out of necessity, they became vegans. The things they didn't predict were the psychological effects of being enclosed and having to live and work so close together, and on a vegan diet. That would make anyone grouchy. I guess they pulled a mild Lord of the Flies episode and broke into factions. Not too productive for a scientific experiment. Clark also said that once in a while, one or two of them return, but since they were forced out by management, they pretty much stay away.  One psychological aspect they did take into account was having a view of the sky. Being fully enclosed without a wide vista would make them nutso much quicker.

A dinosaur exhibit. Nicco's favorite part.

One of the rainforests.

Bananas in the rainforest. By the end of the experiment, the original crew was mostly living on bananas and the food produced in the rainforest part of the biosphere.

This was an interesting tree. It grew itself back together. It is a nurse tree, so it helps other things grow. (So scientific and technical. Clark had a much more meaningful explanation, but my brain doesn't retain that kind of information for long.)

Clark, Papi, and Patrice, engaged in some interesting discussion of the environments in the biosphere. This was in the fog desert part, so it might have been about how the plants in the fog deserts get their moisture from the fog, since it doesn't really rain.

The ocean. There are fish there, and it even smells like the ocean. Part of the smell came from the mandrakes. Those are interesting plants. They break living things down and live off the decomposing matter. They also emit salt, so the walls of the buidling which had contact with the mandrakes were all rusted. Another couple of  interesting little facts: a big biological problem with the original experiment was the lack of oxygen. The soil, apparently, soaked up a lot more oxygen than the plants produced, and the concrete continues to cure for years and years, also soaking up oxygen. Another thing that was missing from the real environment was wind. That makes the trees a little funky. Trees need wind for exercise, so I suppose these were nature's version of couch potatoes.

Nicco on a path in the rain forest. This part was really impressive. You actually feel like you're in the rain forest. Minus birds, bugs, and animals. That was one of our observations...they claim that they are replicating all the systems on earth, but without any animals, it is hardly a complete picture.

In the guts of the place, on our way to the "lung." This was Nicco's other favorite part...it was echo-y. I am going to have to steal Papi's picture of the lung. It was really and truly amazing. There is a 17,000 ton disc suspended in the middle of this gigantic chamber, held aloft by AIR PRESSURE. They created a vacuum to manage the air flow and keep the building from exploding. When the air pressure changes, the disc moves up and down. Clark demonstrated this for us. It was mind blowing. Hard to explain.

Here's Mamie holding onto her sweater when Clark opened the outside door, changing the air pressure and creating quite a breeze!

And, Mamie helping Nicco through the blast of wind to the outside.

It was an interesting and educational experience, and I'm glad we went. I'm especially glad we got the insiders' tour instead of the regular public tour. We want to be friends with Clark. Patrice should cook for him.