Last Tuesday, I took the day off and took William to the Oakland Zoo. It was a beautiful sunny day and in celebration of a Hitting-Free two weeks (a story for another day...), I decided the little man deserved a reward. We spend the morning with the animals and then after lunch headed over to the ride area. If you haven't been to the Oakland Zoo, you need to understand that the ride area is just a few small carnival rides. In fact, there are two rides there that have NEVER even worked. There is a small roller coaster. Think: up, down, and around twice- just enough to feel sick, but not quiet enough to induce vomit. And no thrills to offset the queeze. There is a carousel with the standards zoo carousel animals to sit on. And go up, down, and around a few times. (yes, more queeze). There is a train ride that is actually pretty cool. And then there are the cars.


Tiny cars going in a circle. There is no gas and no brake, as they are all attached to poles attached to the center. They go MAYBE zero miles per hour. But the attendant on Sunday was extremely serious about his job. I didn’t catch his name, but let’s call him, “Nazi Car Guy” (NCG for short).

We got to the car ride and there were a cluster of kids “lined” up as per the usual. No attendant in sight, but one lady was nervously telling everyone to get in line. In a real line, not a 3-year-old line. “The guy is going to insist, so I’m just sayin’.” She was twitching and looking over her shoulders. Her child was rigid with fright, but I just thought they were weird.

Until NCG showed up. He stood on the other side of the gate. I really think that he saw it as being St. Peter deciding who could go through the pearly gates. Sadly, the gate is all of 2 feet high metal. Not a pearl in sight.

LINE UP! LINE UP SINGLE FILE RIGHT HERE! NO!!! SINGLE FILE. THE SOONER YOU MOVE IT, THE SOONER WE CAN START.

Keep in mind that in order to go on this ride, the children must be between 36 and 42 inches. So it’s for those ages 2-5. It’s not the Tower of Terror or a safari adventure where children could slip out and be eaten by lions. It’s a car ride where cars go around in slow circles.

With the help of startled parents, the children lined up, bewildered, but still sort of plotting which car they were going to maneuver through the intricate circle of fun. NCG would soon take that plotting away, as each child was demanded to STAND AGAINST THE RULERED WALL SO THAT I CAN MAKE SURE YOU ARE THE APPROPRIATE HEIGHT.

Rather than glancing haphazardly with little or no interest at the child next to the ruler as they do in the normal world, NCG opened the gate, walked through, stood next to the ruler wall and then proceeded with The Procedure.

STAND WITH YOU FEET AGAINST THE WALL. YES, LIKE THAT. He would then take his pointer and carefully hold it to the point at which the top of the child’s head reached. MOVE AWAY FROM THE WALL. He would then carefully examine the place where the pointer touched. Sometimes he’d have the child come back to start over.

If the child was approved, he would go back to the gate, open it, let the child through. WALK! DO NOT RUN! REMEMBER WALK, DO NOT RUN.

Then he repeated on the next child.

Once the children were in place. He began the lecture. DO NOT TAKE YOUR SEAT BELT OFF. DO NOT STAND UP. DO NOT YELL OR SCREAM. WE WILL START IN A MOMENT, BUT REMEMBER THE RULES. THEY ARE HERE TO KEEP YOU SAFE. DO NOT TAKE YOUR SEAT BELT OFF AND DO NOT STAND UP. DO NOT MOVE UNTIL THE RIDE COMES TO A COMPLETE STOP. He said “COMPLETE” extra loud and mean. DO NOT RUN OUT. WALK CALMLY. WE WILL BEGIN.

And then the children gleefully went around in stupid circles ten exact times, smiling and giddy with power.

The parents and grandparents were all swearing to report NCG. Muttering to one another throughout the entire ordeal about how they can’t believe this and spouting expletives when their child was too small at 35.99 inches or too big at 42.01 inches.

I, however, was laughing and making mental notes for writing fodder.

Kristin, my best friend from 3rd grade, found a contract in her files that we'd signed on March 26, 1981.  It states, "The signers of this contract will have to pay one dollar each month and five dollars interest per year until age 21.  Although, extra money may be added."

We were going to spend the summer of our 21st birthday in Yellowstone Park as rangers and this was to be our fund for it.  Sadly, I think we sucked at math, as this contract would only have given us about $150.

I scanned a bunch of pictures of the Mariani Ranch and decided to make it into a movie with music:



In case it doesn't show well on this page, you can click here for the YouTube page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-12xw2aagE

My first car was a bright yellow Chrysler Newport.  I always thought it was a 1960, but when I pull up pictures, I think it was more a ’63 or so.  It looked a lot like this:





Only instead of costing $2,964, it was $100.  It was the car of a friend of my grandfather’s.  I can’t remember her name now, but she was so very nice and wanted me to have her old car.  So this Chrysler Newport sat in my driveway for almost a year before I got my driver’s license in 1983. 

Although these days this would be a classic car and a cool status symbol, at the time, it was just a big, yellow, very old car.   My friends called it, “The Banana” due to its length and color.  It comfortably seated 8.  No seat belts, of course.  We would pile in and pile out.  AM radio only, so I hung a tape player on the ash tray.  No air conditioning, so the windows were always rolled down (hand-cranked, of course).  The trunk was massive and frequently featured the worldly belongings of a teenager or two who’d run away from home (they knew I had the room…).

It was made of solid steel and had no working meter to tell me when gas was running low.  So I had to fill it up (10 gallon tank) and then could only go 100 miles before it would konk out on me.  That’s 10 miles to the gallon.  10.  

Summer nights, when there was no school and we were out too late to go home, we’d sometimes just sleep in the car (comfortably slept four).  We’d put the White Album or the Alarm on my clunky tape player and zonk out until the Creamery opened and we could go in for coffee and usually nothing else- I’m sure that thrilled the waitresses.

The Banana brought me so much joy and fun and freedom.  I have wonderful memories of that big yellow boat car. Which is a good thing, as I don’t think there are any pictures of it, either.

I made a mental note to take pictures of my kids with their first cars.  In hindsight, it's a monumental occasion.

I've been working so hard on genealogy lately, that I've neglected posting here. Our December was filled with a week at Disneyland and then three weeks of sickness. Totally worth it, but put a damper on excitement for Christmas when we couldn't stop coughing and blowing our noses.

For New Year's Eve, the kids stayed up until midnight. I lasted until 11pm. Now it's naptime for all as we just spent an hour pulling together everything we could from the pantry, refrigerator, freezer and vegetable bin making a delicious Stone Soup. The kids even say they will eat it for dinner tonight... we shall see.

The 2011 year has a trip to Maine in store for us and we are so excited. We will also be visiting Oregon as soon as the pass will allow and a trip to Southern California for some sort of monster convention for two of the Mascots (here's a hint- not me and not the one who would out-monster the monsters).

We wish you all a very happy new year and I promise to try to be better at this whole writing thing this year.

This year's costumes feature Signa as Frankie Stein (Frankenstein's Monster's daughter), William as Boba Fette, Marc as a deep sea diver and me as Sunken Treasure. The kids' costumes were store bought, but not ours!

A year and a half ago, my doctor gave me a slip for the dreaded mammogram. I sucked it up and went and they said Sorry Charlie, as I hadn’t been NOT breastfeeding for long enough. So six months ago I got another dreaded slip from my doctor and then promptly lost it. I found it a couple of weeks ago and sucked it up and made the appointment for last Thursday.

It’s been a long hard week and to have a mammogram in the middle was just frightening. I shaked myself all the way in, barely able to sign the 40 million waivers, pay promises and privacy notices for all the quivering. I nearly sobbed as I waited. She called my name and I had that stomach sinking feeling from hell.

I put the gown on and went into a slightly darkened toasty warm room. She showed me the machine and how it worked and that she’d be taking four pictures, two of each boobie. She explained everything and then we began. And then 40 seconds later, it was over and I was laughing. “Seriously? That’s IT?!?!? “

There is no pain. There is no pinching or hurting. Perhaps breastfeeding two children past the age of two has desensitized me, but SERIOSLY!??!

If you have been putting this off, stop. Trust me, the Scardy Cat Whiny Baby of the Universe. Just go. It’s NOTHING.