32" X 32" lavender blanket for Amelia. The yarn is a very soft polyester-nylon blend. I started it the day she was born (April 11) and finished it on May 20. 

1/2000sec f4.5 34mm ISO100 MF 4/30/06 6:26PM PDT. The bright portion near the bottom had filled the entire object. It looks like a cloud was blowing off to the left of the rainbow. 

What is that thing in the sky? 

Ferns and moss on Alder trees near Amboy 

Abby, just before she said, "Mama, Amelia is heavy!" 

Both grandma's girls 

That's me holding Amelia 

Lief looks just like he did three years ago, when Abby was born. 

Abby holding little sister Amelia 

P'Nut with a bouquet of rare yellow flowers. As a future kayaker, she qualifies as subject matter for this site. 

Oscar night 

This morning it was so cold that Barbie needed a shawl. The shawl was made from imported Italian "Silky Wool" with 65% wool and 35% silk. Note the fashionable pink platform shoes that match the pink blouse and mini-skirt. The blouse and skirt seem to be overwhelmed by the shawl in this photo, but she is warm sitting in the morning Sun. I try to get the girls to wear something warmer on these cold days. 

The green sweater fits James much better than it fit me.  

After five months of knitting, I finally finished the green sweater for James. That's me modelling it, and you can see that my arms are too short. It is thin, made with 10 skeins of light-weight "Silky Wool" which is a blend of wool and silk. 

Cedar River at Wells Ave. Jan 11, 2006. Parks Dept has blocked off walkways. The benches are in 6-8 inches of water, as the lower walkway at Jones Park is submerged. 

Cedar River, at Wells Ave. Jan 11, 2006. Branches over-hanging the water are actually in the water. The walkway is covered by about six inches of water. 

Big rear windows and check out that rack! 

New car (and old cat) in driveway 

Abby and the Planet Tatooine

Last summer Abby was only 2-1/2 years old. After a typical weekend visit it was time for her to go home. For some lucky reason, I had become a player in one of her standard rituals; I was appointed to carry her out to the car and put her in her toddler car seat.

It was nearly dark when we got outside. There was just a bit of light from the sunset, but the sky above was almost black, and it was unusually devoid of clouds. Out of habit, whenever I see a clear night sky and a grandchild is present, I scanned quickly for the Moon. It was completely absent, but there was an extremely bright star-like object in the West.

“Look at that bright star.” I said to Abby, “Isn’t it pretty?”

Then, feeling guilty about the inaccuracy of my statement, I corrected it by saying, “Actually, it’s not really a star. It’s a planet named Venus.”

Abby considered the facts as she knew them, and then replied, “you mean like Tatooine?”

“What?” I thought. The name “Tatooine” was vaguely familiar but for some reason I couldn’t place it with any astronomical facts. Then I remembered the Star Wars movie, where Luke Skywalker, the main character, was raised on the planet Tatooine.

“Yes Abby,” I replied, “Venus is a planet…just like Tatooine.”

Abby Says, Listen to Me!

The other day when Abby brought her parents over here to visit, I found myself in the position of entertaining her by myself (while the adults visited at the dining room table).

We went through the drawer in the cabinet next to my easy chair, and finding only the same boring toys that were there last time, we gave up and began looking for something fun to do.

Since the guitar is old news too, I decided to show Abby something I'm sure she hadn't seen before: the mandolin. She liked it and had fun hearing the strange sounds it made as she battered the antique metal strings. I noticed that several of the pairs of strings were out of pitch, so I began tuning it.

Now, I have to explain that I think Abby has some kind of hearing disorder. She reacts to my playing of stringed instruments in the same way as our cat (Pompi-doodle) reacts to my whistling. In short, I believe both of these small females are annoyed by my attempts to make music.

So before I was able to even begin adjusting the horribly flat string, Abby gripped the whole bunch of strings right over the sounding hole, pinched them down until it was not possible to get a single note out of any of them, looked me right square in the eyes and said, "Stop that!"

I waited calmly for her to go back to whatever she had been doing a moment earlier. It didn't take long because whatever it was had been a lot more interesting than the mandolin. So the instant she let go of the strings, I began checking their pitch again. I hadn't quite figured out which one was flat before she gripped them as before and re-issued the command, "Stop that!"

You may think I should have abandoned the effort, and I will agree, but at the time it didn't occur to me to put the mandolin down because there were at least two strings off pitch, and I really needed to fix that before I could do anything else.

So this time, when she gripped the strings, I continued to pick at the string I was tuning, in hopes that as soon as she let go I would be able to hear how far off-pitch it was, and might be able to adjust it between scoldings. It didn't work.

This time, she continued to hold the strings, and I continued to pluck at them, although she was repeating, "Stop that! Stop that!"

Suddenly, she changed tactics by saying, "Look at me! LOOK AT ME!"

Of course, I had to look into those serious little blue eyes, and then she sternly said, "STOP THAT!"

OK, so that was enough. I put down the mandolin and picked her up and gave her a big hug. I realized that the expression "look at me" is how her Aunt Pam gets her mis-behaving cousin's attention, so she simply applied the technique to her mis-behaving grandfather.