Cubed

I'm still processing the epic and formidable brilliance of Moby Dick. I feel like I should write a paper. Maybe I will. In the meantime, a thought from Book Club.

We read The Forgotten Garden, a mystery surrounding an abandoned child, a garden, and book of fairy tales. The abandoned child is taken in and eventually adopted by a loving couple who were struggling to have a child on their own. Says the author, "The child lent a solidity to him and Lil. They were a family now, an unbreakable unit of three."

 

I read that part of the story around the same time that we watched an episode of Doctor Who in which the earth is invaded with cubes. Millions of cubes that didn't do anything for a whole year. It was known as the slow invasion. Cubes. When the people grew accustomed to the cubes, they attacked. They stopped hearts. But restarted them too. The Shakri (the invading species) were defeated with their own device. Said Amelia Pond, "So that was the year of the slow invasion. When the Earth got cubed and the Doctor came to stay. It was also when we realized something the Shakri never understood. What cubed actually means. The Power of Three."

 

My unbreakable unit of three. Cubed.  

Night Games

I remember when I was little we played There Ain't No Bears Out Tonight, Ghosts in the Graveyard, and other variations of hide-n-seek by the light of the summertime moon. That was fun.

I don't know if other Arizona kids play night games. Mine doesn't. Really nasty poisonous and deadly evil critters come out at night. My kid goes night swimming. The pool thermometer has read in the upper 80s lately. It was actually warm, not slightly chilly, actually and truly warm in the pool yesterday. Even I didn't complain. We had some friends over for dinner and night swim yesterday.

The visitors were kind and accommodating to my little guy. He giggled and squealed and laughed and jumped and dove. He hopped out of the pool at one point to escape Mr. Matt and ran along the pool deck. I had to give him a stern reminder about running, especially at night, especially with his dark goggles. He looked at me and with a dismissive wave of the hand he said, "It's cool, mom."

Wait, what? It's cool, mom? How old is that kid? And, no, it most certainly is NOT cool!

While the little man kept playing, the adults made observations on the passing of time and how quickly a seven year old becomes seventeen. We suddenly realized that the pandora station was empathic and began playing Enya...who can say where the road goes, where the day flows, only time...

After a late dinner, Nicco still wanted to stay up. No school, you know. I did enforce a before 10:00 curfew, tucked my baby who is still my baby into bed, then joined the grown-ups for diabetic coma inducing double chocolate cake.

Not a bad kick off to summer.

Reptile Ramble

The docents at the garden park bring out the slimy creepy crawlers every Friday morning. I wanted to take Nicco and his little buddy and yesterday, being the first day of summer break, we went.

We were greeted by three quail families...so stinkin' cute! I love them! My friend's kids laughed at me for behaving so giddily at the little quails, all in a row.

We watched the quails for a bit before heading up to the rotunda for the reptile demonstration.

We saw a whole bunch of snakes. A gopher snake, a king snake, a coral snake, some other kind of snake, and a rattle snake. We learned that gopher snakes and king snakes are good to have around. Both will eat mice and rats, and king snakes will eat rattle snakes!

The guy said not to be afraid of rattlesnakes. They are not aggressive. They rarely bite, mostly when they're being harassed by drunken males between the ages of 16 and 28. Hmmm. Who would have guessed. The most likely demographic to harass snakes. He told us the dos and don'ts of snakebites...call 911 or get to a hospital immediately. (Duh) If you're out in the middle of nowhere, walk, don't run, and calmly walk to where you can get help. (Yes. Remain calm. Remember that when you're snakebit in the middle of nowhere.) Don't do the cowboy move...cutting it open and sucking out the venom totally doesn't work. It just allows the venom to go deeper into the body and do more damage. And, don't believe the "do it yourself" methods you might see on the internets. Peeing on the bite won't neutralize it, neither does electricity. Just ask the drunk male, roughly 25 years old, who had his drunk buddies take a picture of him kissing a rattlesnake. They heard that electricity neutralizes snake venom so they hooked up the jumper cables to the truck battery and their idiotic friend's face. You can guess what happened. If you can't, then you're probably stupid enough to try it yourself to find out.

 

We took the kids who were done listening to snake stories to the children's garden to float boats down the little river fountain. Then we wandered the other parts of the garden. We saw the pup fish pond, a lizard doing push-ups under a saguaro, and the various statuary in the gardens.

 





The kids played in this fountain in the Moorish Garden.

 

Because they were tired.

 And it was hot.



Mesozoic Park

The Sago Palm is in the family of "living fossils," one of the oldest species of plants in existence. Word of the day: dioecious. It means either male or female. We have two of these dinosaur palms, one of which is in flower right now. The males have a cone shaped reproductive structure, females a globe shaped one.

I think this one is a girl:

They say you can remove the flowering part so the plant doesn't spend its energy making seeds that won't get fertilized, but I kind of want to see what happens.

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Good idea: Tree Hugging

There is nothing quite like the vanilla or butterscotch fragrance buried in the cracks of the pine bark which fills the freshy-fresh mountain air with sweetness. It's energizing and rejuvenating.

 

Bad idea: Cactus Hugging

The Daddy slipped and lost his balance while doing some outdoor work and fell onto a Saguaro. Luckily, he only planted one hand in the spines, not both. Or worse, his face. I spent most of the morning yesterday as "Doctor Mom" hunched over his palm with my needle and tweezers, doing surgery. This is one of the smaller poison tips I pulled out of Patrice's fingers. They were buried in the joints, palm, fingers, everywhere. Poor guy. The cactus spines can cause blood poisoning, so Patrice endured my digging and prodding.

 

Nicco asked him how it happened and after the explanation he told his Daddy matter of factly, "That was foolish." I guess he won't do that again! 

Swimmers Take Your Marks

My favorite part of swim practice is when my Tough Guy takes the blocks. He makes me think of the New Zealand Rugby team, intimidating dressed in all black. 

 His starts are getting better and better. He actually shoots off like an arrow more than half the time.

Today the coaches got all the swimmers in the two far lanes, big kids and little kids, and had them play "sharks and minnows."

Besides being a nice team building exercise fostering camaraderie, it was adorable. I always love to see big kids be nice and have fun with little kids.

Spoily, Spoily, Spoily!

Yesterday My Baby's Daddy said something about needing something for Mother's Day. I said, "Why? I'm not your mom." Nicco said, "Don't worry Dad. I've got it covered."

I woke up to a multitude of hugs and kisses, wept as the small children sang songs honoring Mamas at church, then came home to a treasure hunt. My small boy left notes hidden around the house, accompanied by small treasures. All on his own. His very own plan. So cute. I lurvs him!

Happy mothers day, mom! this is your first clue, you will find these whenever you find a gift.
So here is your first clue. #one after you get dressed and see me look around your room. Love Nicco.

 Hidden under that clue was this lego heart with an M on top, for Mom.

My next clue said: Congratulations! You have reached your 2nd clue! You are going to have a lot of fun. Clue #2 eat breakfast. Look in kitchen.

I found this beautiful picture. He said, "I wanted to draw like Vincent again, but because it's mother's day, I made red roses. Your favorite color!" Did I mention that I love this kid? I love him.

The next clue said: Wow! I can't believe your at the 3rd clue! Your going to love this one! Clue #3 after you bake cookies (he gave me a choice...I can bake cookies, or a cake, or brownies. It's my choice!) look in the office.

In the office I found a red toy car (my favorite color). The good news, my boy said, is that I get to keep it. I told him he could borrow it from me any time. I also found my next clue.

Your at the 4th clue already! Well, your doing great, Mom. Clue #4 if you want to do anything else go ahead. Look around the house.

I looked around the house and found six little magnets he made in his primary class.

When I found the last magnet, there was another clue: Hurry up! One more clue! Clue #5 Go outside and look out there.

I found the package from his school project and the final note which read, "You made it! Happy mother's day, mom." I opened it on our new loungy chairs. The Daddy got me a gift after all!

More kisses!
The boys made a Mother's Day linner (it was too late for brunch) feast:

Bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, bagels and lox, and french toast. Om nom nom!

And now that the day is in the record books, I'm going back out to the patio. Must lounge.

Here There Be Monsters, A Mother's Day Story

"Today we're answering a cry for help from the scariest place in the universe. A child's bedroom."
~The Doctor

Once upon a time there was a little girl. She was like every other little girl. She loved some things and hated some things, some things made her happy, others made her sad.

And some things made her cry in the night for her mama. She had monsters.

The monsters looked like shadows crawling in through the windows and under the crack between the door and the floor. They looked like a sweater tossed over the back of a chair. They looked like a pile of dolls and stuffed animals. But they were none of those things. The monsters were real.

Every night her mama tucked her into bed and gave her a kiss on the forehead. In that moment she felt safe and secure. Because there is no safer place than in the presence of one's mama. But her mama always left and she was alone with her monsters.

She tried to be brave. She tried to tell herself that the monsters were not real, that they were just shadows and sweaters and toys. But she knew better and she always ended up crying for her mama to save her from the monsters.

Night after night she anticipated the moment of terror when the light went off and the monsters came out. Night after night her mama came to her in a blaze of protective fire, frightening the monsters away until tomorrow. It was exhausting. For both the little girl and for her mama.

But monsters don't get tired. They don't wear out. They are very patient and they can wait and wait and wait until babies and mamas are tired of fighting and being brave and that's when they gobble you up.

Lucky for this little girl, her mama was smarter than the monsters. She would never get tired of fighting because she would win first.

One more time she tucked her little girl into bed. She gave her a kiss on the forehead. She said, "Good night, sleep tight," and turned off the light. And this time, she waited. She heard her little girl cry, as she knew she would, for her mama to save her from the monsters.

The mama burst into the room, turned on the light and dared the monsters to come out. She commanded the monsters to come out. Out of the closet! Out of the drawers! Out from under the bed! Out from behind the door! OUT OUT OUT!!! She grabbed her little girl by the hand and together they chased the monsters out. Out of the closet, out of the drawers, out from under the bed and behind the door. Out of her room, down the hall, to the front door.

The mama flung the door open and yelled at the monsters, "GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE AND DON'T YOU COME BACK!" She slammed the door as the last monster slinked away in fear and shame.

The mama walked her little girl back to her room, closed all the doors and drawers, kissed her on the forehead, turned out the light, and said, "Good night, sleep tight."

And she did.
The monsters were gone.
And they never came back.

True story.