K2: Mommy, why do cowboys always ride west?

I had to think about this for a minute, and was about to offer a geography lesson to this clever question when Brian popped his head in and answered, "That is because cowboys are always riding off into the sunset, and the sun sets to the west."

We caught the sunset coming out of San Francisco on the ocean side yesterday. Sunset over the ocean in California is beautiful in winter. The colors are brilliant. This is the rainy season so there are often clouds making it all the more spectacular, and there is nothing like the sun setting into or coming up from the ocean.

Adventure day was San Francisco to the Randall Museum, a small museum set close to the top of one of the hills that overlook most of San Fran, and give a breathtaking view of downtown, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other parts as well. It is between the Castro and the Haight district, so after the museum, and a hike up to the highest point on the hill to drink in the view, we headed down to Haight St for lunch. The luncheonette recommended by our "Fodor's Around San Francisco with Kids" (thank you Trish!) had a line out the door so we headed down the block soaking in the ambiance of all sorts of cool and eclectic shops, from a Himalayn store, 3 or 4 smoke and head shops, a stained glass place, and more "vintage" stores than you can shake a stick at.

Our wanderings took us to a South African restaurant (think Addis Red Sea in Boston) for some amazing finger food cuisine that even Kieran gobbled up (yummy). Afterwards, I headed back to the car to have Kiwi nap for a while, and Brian and Keiran headed back toward the museum to climb up to the top of a second hill-top park, and reported even more amazing views. Kiwi fell asleep while nursing so I walked with her in the sling and wandered Haight St. As I walked into and out of various vintage stores, I thought it would be great to come back as there were lots of cool and offbeat clothes to check out. After a few blocks, I spotted a Goodwill. Someone once said that a thrift store can tell you a lot about an area. There is one a few blocks from where we are that is always hopping, but I can't understand why. One quick look in will tell you that its thoroughly picked over and the chances of finding something worth the time is close to non-existent. On Haight St., SF, the Goodwill is all about designer labels. Its fun to walk through the store - its clean, well organized, well let, and well stocked. I picked up a little knit sweater for $3.49 (a fancy french label), and $1 for a beautifully beaded purse for Akira (probably $100 in Nordstroms if it was a dime), and a skateboard helmet for Kieran. Total under $10. This is a place where you could dress in style for $9.99 or less (OK maybe more if you actually wanted shoes and a coat). Kiwi slept through the whole thing. I'll have to go back someday when I can actually try stuff on!

Wilkie Court: The walking tour

So in case you wanted to see what our new place looked like, I've included a walk through video. The place is bitchin! If I'd known all I had to do is come to Silicon Valley to get amazing weather, a big house, and a beautiful yard, neighbors who are bringing over cake and cookies like it was the 50's (OK, so most of them have been here since someplace around then - we are one of 2 young couples on the cul-de-sac with everyone else being a geriatric) was leave everything I know, my family, and live with the thought of earthquakes, well I'd have done it years ago :) Well perhaps not, but this place is fabulous so far.



In the distance, I just heard the train blow its horn as it went by. I was briefly worried, but it goes by so quickly that its a matter of seconds and its somewhat distant. Brian referred to it the other day as, "the sound of affordability", which suddenly put a lovely and positive spin on it.

Sad thing about this house is that we are going to get totally spoiled, and if time comes to buy our own place, what we can rent and what we can buy here ... Let us just say that there is NO cross-over. If the economy breaks down to the point that we can (technically) buy a house like this, we won't be able to buy it anyway, because we'll be paying $20 for a bottle of water instead :)

Mommy, there is crap on my sock

Symmetry - how sweet the sound it is.

So the most amazing thing about this week is not that we've totally landed on our feet, or that we found this amazing house in the 11th hour, or that its been 68-70 degrees almost every day making afternoon park time an absolute pleasure, or that we all survived a stomach bug in 24-48 hours with no permanent effects ... its that Akira signed to me that she needed her diaper changed!!! Only happened once, and then the stomach virus hit, so we'll see if she picks it up again.

I'm reminded of something my mom said more than once, and that is that she loved having kids and watching them develop, that she was on pins and needles (ok I'm paraphrasing here) waiting to find out what little person would emerge, who they would be, what they would be like, and what they would say. Akira is turning out to be a cutie-patutie!

My funniest moment (other than reading Brian's "guest blog" below, was Kieran coming into the kitchen last night and firmly labeling the wood chips and such stuck to his socks as, "Mommy, there is crap on my sock," and Brian saying "Kieran, you should say socks, not sock, because there is crap on both socks" as I diligently tried not to laugh .. too hard...

Settled in Style: 4129 Wilkie Court, Palo Alto CA 94306

Not much to look at from this photo, but we did it. We found a place and closed on it (its a lease, not a sale), just 18 hours shy of the moving truck coming. I'd looked most of this week and seen over a dozen places, mostly crappy or shoddy, and even though hand down this is the nicest of them by far, I think I wasn't ready for the search to be over, or at least I didn't expect things to pan out at the last minute like this. I hemmed and I hawed and I couldn't say exactly why... the kitchen was a little small and dated, the train closer than I wanted, the sun at the wrong angle (just kidding). Brian saw the video and was baffled by my response. He suggested that I go and hang out in the area this morning, and by the time I was done, it was a done deal.

Its big (2000 sq ft), all on one level (ranch style), has a lovely fenced yard, and is 500 ft from a park. The kitchen is a bit small and outdated, but the rest of the place is nice and huge (yes, huge). We've got 3 bedrooms, and office, a dining room, and essentially 2 living rooms - one of which will be the play room. Oh, and a big 2 car garage, a driveway that fits 2 cars, and the house is on a quiet cul-de-sac. Its centrally located, although it is on the "other side of the tracks" from old Palo Alto, which means that for the particular neighborhood, you get a lot more bang for your buck. The same rent near where the temp house is, just 8 or 9 blocks away, gets you 2 minuscule bedrooms in an OK house, or 3+ dilapidated bedrooms in a crappy house. Old Palo Alto vs New Palo Alto which was still farmland up until the 50s. Also, much of Palo Alto is near the train tracks, and this is a hair closer than I thought I'd be into, but after spending 2 hours at the local park and then the house I decided that we should take it.

Funny thing is - because it was on the other side of the tracks, I almost did not go look at it - really decided to at the last possible moment, called, and found out there was to be an open house an hour later. And this morning, sort of like when you see something on ebay and decide you might want to bid on it and get committed out side of reason, there was a bit of a frenzy for this place (someone after us offered $100 more a month, but a later start date), which we apparently won by a matter of minutes. In this market, to have several people go after the same house seems to be unheard of. You should have seen how flustered the rental agent was that people were even waiting for the open house.

Yes, yet again, a little patients and perseverance turned up what will hopefully be a diamond in the not so ruff.

The Value of Roughing It (Guest Blogged by Brian)

Our first two weeks in California have been fun and exciting, but they have not been easy. Yes, we have enjoyed fun day trips here and there, and we're very much appreciating the mild, sunny climate. But while waiting for the movers to bring our possessions over from snowy Boston, we've had to do without some of the basics for a while: basics like furniture, warm blankets, and television. Even our internet access has been intermittent. While these hardships have been trying, I think they have brought us closer together as a family and will make us stronger people individually.

I am not above "roughing it" or "camping out." I am a man's man, and I own flannel shirts. I think the fact that we have to drive two miles to Starbucks every morning for our lattes is exhibit A that we can harness our wild environment.

But this week we have been sleeping on airbeds; sitting on milk crates with plates in our laps for our meals; relaxing on a set of blankets spread out on the hardwood floor that we refer to as "the couch" (in times of destitution it is important to maintain one's aptitude for irony); cooking with rudimentary facilities and limited supplies (we have only two pots and one small frying pan); dining out at places that don't have tablecloths or stemware; and trying to watch movies on a laptop screen.

But what has buoyed us throughout all of this is the knowledge that there are people in the world who are far worse off than we have been. In some third-world countries whole families must live in a room the size of a hamper. They are forced to eat nothing but the tamarinds and coconuts they find on the beaches. Instead of bifocals, they all have monocles and can only see out of one eye at a time. And their drinking water comes directly from sewage pipes, where they must hold out their demitasse cups to be filled and sipped, filled and sipped, filled and sipped. It's a monotonous and dangerous life in such places (I know this firsthand, because I saw it on television once).

Our time in this desolation has left me pensive moments to reflect on my family, and I have concluded that if we focus on the misfortune of others, it helps us to better appreciate the things that we already have. But if we spend too much time focusing on them, we won't have time to think about all the cool stuff we could be buying.

And I think that is a lesson for all of us.

Buzz Butt Bumblebee

So the kids have been troopers the past few days. As you all know, we are in temporary housing - good for a 3+ months, but we need to have found a new home by then. Our stuff arrives on Saturday, afternoon, so if we'd happened to have found a place by then, we'd only have to move once. So to that end, I've quickly sifted through the availability inventory and have sadly not found anything I'd take hands down. There is a lot of really crappy real estate out there, but for sale and for rent. I am continually amazed at the stuff that has clearly rented before and landlords that are surprised that one might object to (including but not limited to), 200 year old kitchens (at leas they look that way), buckled flooring, 1950's kitchen appliances (can't believe they still work), converted garages being passed as bedrooms (look ma, just add carpet and a full wall shelf that blocks the doors), "move in condition" means its currently vacant, and "no major problems" apparently excludes sewer back-up and a whole house termite fumigation.

All I can say is thank god for google maps and craigslist. I can look at photos, get a "street view" look, a quick satellite view to see the yard and general neighborhood, go back to street view to "walk" down the street and see the neighborhood, and all before I've made a call to rule a place out.

All said and done, with a little diligence, there are nice places, and with a little patients, one of them will become our new home.

If I don't kill Kieran first, he may even get to enjoy it. Today in one of the rentals, he a. tried to slide down the stairs face first, b. tried to climb the brick fireplace to the ledge above, c. benign - picks a citrus fruit at every house that has one. We've had oranges, lemons, and grapefruit to date, some ripe, some not so ripe,

So we are surviving. As of 10:36 pm on Thursday, we are staying the course and keeping with this place until the right place come up.

More on this topic later.

More monkeys than you can shake a stick at.

This morning I woke up to white frosted grass in the front yard and and the pools of water collected on the hot tub's rain cover (don't be jealous - it is non-functional) were frozen solid.

So of course we decided it was a perfect day to go to the skating rink in downtown San Jose for Kieran to go ice skating. It was a beautiful day for it. Kieran and Brian skated in sweaters and jeans while Kiwi and I took in the granite staircase in front of San Jose's art museum, and thier lobby which had a fabulous exhibit of carboard monkies.

Sadly the only photos I have of Kieran skating are on my phone, so they'll never make it here.

I have to admit the exhibit made me want to start making art again... or monkeys ... or maybe just some cool craft projects with the kids. Arm with with a cardboard box, a glue gun, and some markers and baby, watch out!

Tomorrow Kieran starts his new school, and Brian goes to his new work. Big day!

The scope of things

A very simple pleasant day.
We hung out at the house, the park, and the library.
Kiwi sat under a very big tree.

He left a poop at Rotten Robbie's

Morning and a forecast of rain found us heading out to San Jose to the Tech Museum (free with our reciprocal MOS pass), and we lucked out as downtown San Jose still had Christmas Town up - tons of X-Mas trees on white felt that looked like dirty driven snow. The museum itself was nice and had a good number of decent exhibits, which says a lot after just having been to the Exploratorium. Would have been great if not for the $20 parking in downtown SJ.

After lunch, we headed out to take Kieran to see the Tales of Despereaux, which was very cute. So many different story lines, but sweet. Akira slept through most of it (amazing the number of things we've pulled of this week while the kid(s) were napping.

By the time we got out at 3:30, there were huge patches of blue sky and fabulous cloud formations, and just as we got on the highway and saw signs for Santa Cruz (also 35-40 minutes away), we both got the same idea and decided to head there for sunset. We arrived down at the shoreline on West Cliff Bvld to see a bunch of surfers taking advantage of the last waves of the day. It was amazing as we huddled together at the top of the cliffs in 45 degree weather to see the surfers hanging out in the water. I don't care how thick the wetsuit is, you've got to be crazy or young to go sit on a board and get soaking wet in January. True enough, those that came out of the water were in there late teens... The sunset was beautiful and lovely as sunsets are.

We had dinner on the Santa Cruz pier with an old CA girlfriend of mine, and then headed back into town, when Kieran suddenly announced his burning need, and with a grimace and a pre-stunk gas station restroom, he left something behind.

Holy Toledo Batman

Wow. Wow. Wow. The Exploratorium (www.exploratorium.edu) in San Fran is like the very best of every hands on museum I've ever been to, all in one place, and to a factor of 10. It has an amazing number of exhibits, and just about all of them work (sorry MOS). The place stretches on for ages, and after 2+ hours, we'd made a pretty decent stab at a lot of the exhibits, but had skipped as many. It was hard to get through because either Kieran or Kiwi (or both) would be riveted with a particular exhibit and not want to move on. My favorite moment was sitting with Kieran at a huge echo tube and singing "the grand old duke of york" together, and another was wearing a pair of headphones with "goat ears" attached which scooped the sound in interesting ways - I could hear things very clearly in whatever direction faced ... and they made both Kieran and Akira laugh when they saw me.

We headed out during naps over the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Beach, and drove over the mountains and through windy roads to the beach and discovered that even in winter, beaches are quite popular in CA. Kieran and Brian headed down to the water where Kieran discovered that it is virtually impossible to touch the water without getting wet, especially when one is trying to outrace a wave. When I got there with Akira, Kieran asked if we could hike up the hill that overlooked the beach, so we went about 2/3rds of the way up - a goodly hike for K2. A backroad down lead near a marsh and some very interesting dried spiny weeds - made me wish I could have been collecting for one of my dried bouquets.

The drive back from the beach brought us back into a misty day. The views of the cloud shrouded and back lit hills was breathtaking, as was the thought of biking up the windy, twisty, steep roads as cars whizzed by.

We headed for home, stopping in China Town for a quick lunch ($12.50 for 2 full entrees, assorted tidbits, and delicious pot stickers and a large helping of MSG). Well, it was cheap and tasty. The streets were crowded with shoppers grabbing groceries, and in the cold as we hurried by shop after shop of strange dried oddities, all Kieran could say is, "its smells really yucky". Thank god its not summertime - even I'd be scurrying away - too many dried anchovies!