Birthday... Month!....Plus a Few Extra Days

This is the life.

First of all, I somehow managed to start October early this year. How is that possible? Well, I did it. It started in the last days of September when I realized that October was almost here and I had been so focused on other things that I hadn't begun to plan my birthday month. The great month of October in which I celebrate my birthday for the whole month and generally use that as an excuse to indulge myself every chance I get. I realized that I wouldn't get my annual dose of Grandma's spaghetti and meatballs as my grandma has been recovering from her fall and broken arm and wouldn't be able to cook. It was also too short notice to ask my sister to cook. Soon, I found out Katrina had to work over my birthday weekend at her new job anyway and wouldn't even be able to have dinner with me. So, I mentioned to Tami that this year we would just not make a big deal of it or have multiple days of birthday parties and dinners. I would still celebrate the whole month, but we would just do one day with family and we would just go to an Italian restaurant or get spaghetti as takeout. How selfless of me. Ha!

Still in September, referring to I don't remember what, I justified something to Tami with "It's my birthday month.. almost.. and that works since I am having only one party this year." And Tami did not argue. Then I did other things like eat some chocolate, make hot chocolate, sit around and read, watch a car show on TV though Tami gets tired of car shows, and more, and always saying "it's my birthday" like I do all October. Except it was still the last couple days of September. Then I realized, and I told Tami of my great accomplishment, that I had started October early this year! Cool. And she couldn't take it back because she already didn't stop me early on and now it was too late and she would have to just indulge me. And she did! Coolest wife ever? Yeah. How did I get so lucky to have a wife who lets me be my own center of attention for a whole month every year? And this year I got to start early, too. Awesome. And she made my favorite bean soup for the 1st of October because she knows I like it and because it's the official start to my great month. And she is going to make me spaghetti and homemade meatballs next weekend to celebrate my birthday with some friends and family since my grandma and my sister will not be able to make my favorite birthday dinner. I am very lucky.

Tuesday:
I like to go to Santa Cruz near my birthday and philosophize and think about my life and put it in perspective of where I have been, where I am am, and where I want to go. This year I spent some time doing that on Tuesday, October 1st. This year I spent considerably less time thinking about my life as compared to the last several years and I spent more time just doing what I wanted and following the whim of my day which made for an excellent day. I started by sleeping in. Then I walked my family out in the morning and kissed good bye my kids and Tami in the car as they headed off to school. I took a bath and read as I sipped my coffee in the warm tub. Then, I hopped on my Ducati to head to Santa Cruz. But I was too hungry to think straight. So, I stopped in Cupertino first for breakfast and started my thinking and journaling there. That was a definitive break from my annual Santa Cruz tradition. After, I rode off to Santa Cruz. But instead of going straight to Java Junction, I decided to go to the beach first where I read and relaxed and took a nap with the breeze and sounds of the ocean. What a great day. Later I did go to Java Junction for a while to think a little more, to be grateful, to look through recent photos, and to write the blog posts that I have been putting up these last couple of days.

The main result this year to my thinking about my life? It's been a good year for me. Like the way I lived this particular Tuesday, I believe that I have come a lot closer in my every day life to an ideal of enjoying life as it occurs and not spending as much time thinking about what I want. I'm in a good place. I have a loving and supportive partner in life, Tami. I have supportive family. I have good friends. I have shelter, food, and a steady income from a steady and interesting job. I have beautiful wonderful children whom I adore. I get to enjoy days with motorcycles and beaches and reading and thinking. I am very very fortunate. I am grateful.

Norton and a Shoestring

I went for a motorcycle ride on Monday. I took the Norton up into the hills on Hwy 9 and Hwy 35 before coming down to meet Don for his birthday.

After enjoying the lookout over Palo Alto, I started back so that I would be in time to meet Don for coffee in Cupertino.  At some point I noticed a change in sound and an odd feeling in the motor. I played with the throttle as I rode and it was fine again. But the bike did sound different. And it felt a little different too. I couldn't identify the difference but it was different. The bike still worked but I couldn't quite accept that all was as it had been. Then, miles down the road I looked down on my left. Shouldn't there be a rolled up piece of slightly weathered and scuffed metal stamped "Dunstall" "Made in England" near my left foot? Yes! The left exhaust can fell off!

A little later, retracing my ride since the lookout, I found it lying in the middle of the lane I had been riding. I new it had to be after the lookout. One thing about always admiring your machine before you get on it is that, even if you can't remember specifically looking at a thing, you can be pretty sure that you would have noticed if a significant thing was different. Like if an exhaust pipe was missing. So, I new it was somewhere between where I stopped with a missing pipe and the lookout point where I had stopped to admire the world and the bike.

Pipe found, I was faced with a problem. It couldn't be reattached properly. I didn't have tools and a tab on the exhaust had broken through causing it to slip off the bike. I would need to work on this a bit to get it solidly on again. But I had nothing to attach the pipe to the bike for a return ride home. I tried the plants around. All broke when bent and would not work as a rope. So, shoelace it was.

Solution found! Exhaust strapped to handlebars with my shoestring.

New problem. The shoe fell off too easily even when I raised my foot. I didn't think it would make it riding down the hill.

Solution part two! I used the leather zipper pulls from my jacket to hold my shoe closed well enough to ride.

Awesome! Don and I got a good laugh out of the story when I made it to the coffee shop with one pipe strapped to my handle bars by a shoestring and my shoe barely held on. I had fun with this. It is really satisfying to problem solve.

Eventually we decided to drop my bike off at home and then Don and I would go to lunch. I liked the sound of the open pipe. It's not much louder than with the pipe on as they appear relatively empty of baffling. Enjoying the sound of the bike, the satisfaction of the day's problem/solution experience, and the humor of it all, I noticed something. A few miles from home my clutch lever came off and was dangling from the bars! The bolt had vibrated out apparently. Without it, how would I change gears or go into neutral to stop? I don't know why I didn't get scared at this but I didn't. It is still a scary thing, though. I reached down while riding, thankfully the traffic was moving and no red light was yet upon us, and I fiddled with it until I had positioned the lever in it's correct place. I realized that it would stay in position when in use as it then pushed up against another piece of metal. So, I was safe when the clutch was pulled in. All I had to do was to hold it in place when it wasn't pulled in so that it would remain ready to use when stopping or changing gears. Riding carefully like this I made it home safe.  

Quite an eventful ride on the Norton.

The exhaust thing still makes me laugh.

The clutch thing still makes me feel lucky. And reminds me that I need to go over the bolts on this vibrating bike more often. But for now, the bike is parked in the garage as is. I think it will take a little brake until I can give it some needed attention. Besides, it looks good with the exhaust on the handle bars.

September Updates Continued

Ana is now so long! She is not a baby. She is at this really beautiful stage where she still has the roundness of a little toddler in her face but the smile and lengthening figure of an older toddler. I know this wont last long. She is very beautiful in this phase though and her smiles are powerfully captivating. She counts things often up to thirteen, usually skipping the four. The other night I heard her just counting in bed, practicing 8 through 10 over and over and in different orders. This after counting the blinds up to thirteen several times before we put her to bed. She talks to me a lot more and loves to sit on me. If I sit on the couch I can almost guarantee she will sit on me these recent days. I, needless to say, love this!, and hope this lasts a while. She smiles at me and talks kind of serious sometimes, serious in tone. And then she smiles and laughs and makes her own jokes. Before long, she is off jumping or climbing again. Jumping and climbing remain her favorite pastime. Tami tells me that all of her 4 molars are poking out to some degree now. I could only see the bottom when I looked. Those are almost completely out with only a bit of gum flap left. Tami says to her in Spanish to show Tami her teeth and Ana instantly complies and opens wide, holding her mouth open for Tami to look. I say the same, and she flashes her mouth open quickly and then clamps it shut in a smile. Funny girl. She did this more than once.

Cool that Ana was wearing that shirt the her class was making tiger masks. She wore hers most of the way home and at a restaurant.That reminds me, almost everyday now, at some point, we will start hearing meowing. Then Enzo will yell out, "There is a cat!" And, looking around, we will find Ana crawling around, smiling, and meowing. "I'm a gato!"

In September we were in a Parade. My sister-in-law asked if I could drive the bug with the music for some of her dancers in the Newark Days Parade. Tami and Ana strolled along as helpers while I drove. Enzo went part way with me, part way walking with his Aunti Tia, and part way in the stroller with Ana.

Very early to find our spot in the staging area allowed me time to mount the jazz playing silhouettes that Tami made, set up the speaker and music, and have a cup of coffee while watching the morning sun establish itself. The theme for the parade this year was jazz and Traci's dancers would be following to a mixed version of "All That Jazz."

Here the dancers are warming up before the parade begins. It's a pretty long route through Newark neighborhoods from City Hall to a park.

Enzo watching the dancers following us. Parades are fun, especially with no car seat rules to follow.

And before it was over, the rain started. And before we would be done- it would really rain! Fun and soaking. we actually decided to leave the bug in Newark and I went back for it that evening when the rain was done. I hadn't converted the wipers to 12volt as the electrical system was converted. I didn't have reliable wipers and it was coming down hard for hours. All part of the fun.

I must say that I like parades as an observer and as a participant.


I recently had the opportunity to flip through yearbooks from when I was in high school. That's a weird experience! I generally think of myself as a quiet type of person. And, obviously I had forgotten about being voted one of four "Most Memorable" in my graduating class. Really? That is not at all part of my self image for my high school days. But after seeing the picture, see below (who wouldn't be memorable with that crazy hair and beard in high school!), I do remember us taking the photo and the honorable designation.

It's still weird to remember and to include in my assessment of what my experience was in high school.

But this was awesome! This is Matt, me, and Nathan in high school. I think it was our sophomore yearbook. "Stud Patrol." Ha! It's pretty cool having friends you had in high school nearly 20 years after the fact.

Tami and I celebrated our 8 year anniversary in September. Eight years and 1 month of marriage, to be precise. First we made it a special day by taking the kids to Roaring Camp. Those photos were in the last post. Then, we took the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's house to play and stay for a couple of hours while Tami and I went out. We went and walked around the Los Gatos Lodge where we got married. It is so much simpler and smaller then I remember it. Funny how that works. After a walk around and a drink and fond memories, we went for a nice dinner in downtown Los Gatos. That's where I snapped these couple of pictures of my beautiful wife, 8 years and a month after we married.

This is just a picture of the bug in a parking lot. Look how small it is next to those cars- and those are not big cars. That's a Prius on the left.

Ana and Enzo have a lot of silly games. One of them is "Sit on me." Versions include sit on my panza, sit on my back, sit on my lap. They all involve them taking turns sitting on each other and laughing.

Here a couple of pics from a breakfast at the Farmer's Market.

I love my kiddos.

These next two are of the kids laughing and playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house. You can't tell from the picture but they are pushing each other, stomach to head, to see who can move the other.

 They are beautiful in their happy play.

Special Days and Updates

So many special days. My sister is now 21! What? I am now married 8 years! What?! I'm about to be 37. Yeah.... at least I was fully prepared and anticipating my birthday coming. The others, while obvious, are still strange. And all days with these kids are special days when I look.

One of my favorite recent kid related events was watching my kids run in the yard while each held an airplane and made their own motor noises. I love this kind of thing. I bought the airplanes on Friday. I had felt particularly financially strapped in September and on pay day just felt like splurging. So, Tami had a work related event to attend so I picked up the kids after work and took them to Tony Roma's for dinner to splurge. We sat near a huge animal.

My son asked what it was and I told him that I didn't know. "What do you think it is?" I asked. "A reindeer!" he said. "Oh, you think so?" I said. But in my head I was thinking something like, "silly cute kid, of course it's way too big to be a reindeer, it's not a reindeer, but you're so cute in thinking so because that's the only similar animal you know from watching the Polar Express movie 5 bigillion times." Wisdom in fatherhood barely masked folly. Keeping my mouth shut was the wisdom part. When the server came back I asked her what the animal was. "It's a caribou" she answered. WHAT!?! "Enzo, you are right! It's a caribou- a reindeer!!!!" Ha!!!!!!! I must have mentioned how cool he was to know that it was a reindeer 5 times during dinner. I think I was trying to make up for the comments in my head as if I had thought them aloud. But he didn't hardly care because he was probably thinking "what's up with Papi bringing that up again? Yeah, it's a reindeer.....obvious!"

Still chuckling to myself about the reindeer, and not done throwing money around, I took the kids to a toy store. This is only the 2nd time I have ever taken these kids to a toy store and they are 3 and 2 years old... so clearly this was a special day.... for me. Enzo chose a toy airplane and Ana a toy truck car hauler that would hold four hotwheels. I chose an airplane for myself because I had already told them they could pick one thing and Ana picked the truck but I just admitted to myself and realized that tomorrow I would splurge again... and we needed another plane. So, I told them I was choosing an airplane for my one toy and that Ana could hold it for me and that they could both take turns playing with it because I like to share.

Saturday, Tami, Me, my mom, and the kids went to the theater. The kids saw their first movie in the theater. We watched the new Disney movie Planes and they had their toy planes with them. Very cool. Ana stayed focused for an hour and started to get a little restless for the last half hour. Enzo stayed nearly mesmerized the whole movie. Yes, mesmerized, as in sitting on the edge of seat for over half of an hour before even appearing to notice anything other than the screen when he got a snack. Yes, I think they liked the theater experience. And, I enjoyed the movie, too. I'm glad mom, Tami and I were able to enjoy the kid's adventure.

Speaking of movies, we have added Toy Story to our approved movies at home. We are now up to four (Polar Express, Cars, Winnie the Pooh, and Toy Story). They never choose Winnie the Pooh for some reason so we cycle through three movies when we do let them watch a movie. It still amazes me that we are watching The Polar Express, a Christmas movie, in the Fall. Thank goodness we get a little variety now with these other movies. The side effect of Toy Story? My son now stands on the couch, puts his arms out and then forward, yells out something like "To Infinity and Beyond!", closes his eyes as Buzz Light Year did, carefully squints open his eyes to aim himself, and then jumps across to another couch. Awesome. He does this repeatedly once he starts.

A little more about Enzo these days. His favorite made up word is Chickabombom. It's an evolving word from a long time ago. It started months back, maybe over a year ago, as a test-his-parents word I think. He would say it like it was a forbidden word. In fact, I think early iterations were chickabombompuchilala-poopoo-peepee! Somehow, and with delicacy, we have been helping him to shape appropriate word choices for appropriate places and chickabombom seems to have lost most of it's testing and become an acceptable funny word. Like calling someone "silly" in a playful way, he can now call someone or something chickabombom without any meanness or say he is going to go to chickabombom, for example, instead of saying school where he is actually going to. Funny kid.

I started reading Dune again. Great book. I usually don't read for myself in front of my kids because I get zoned out in my own world. But I did sit in the family room and read recently. I figured they may as well see me reading books and know adults read for themselves too, not just to kids. Well, they see Tami do work and homework often but not me reading for my own pleasure. Besides, Dune is a great read so I wanted to keep reading. After a while, Enzo says he wants to know the words so I read him a bit. He says he wants to read a book too and he ran off. Seconds later he comes running back with a huge book from my shelf and starts flipping through it. Excellent!

His first chapter book. Ha! He chose The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A hardbound print of the first four books in the series. Ambitious kid! Excellent choice.

Here are some pictures of when we went to the Roaring Camp Railroad recently. Super cool! I am already looking forward to going back.

My beautiful Ana.

After the trains were done for the day, and with me still watching, I let Enzo run on the tracks. He was excited because he wanted to to run all the way to a turn we could see up ahead. He was very excited to turn on the track like a train.

Family Updates

Ana:

Ana is counting a lot more. It's not because of anything I have been doing. I have been saying the alphabet a lot more and she is saying letters more, too. But lately I have noticed her counting items in the world way more often, usually counting items that exist up to five like flowers or cars or chairs. The most common count she likes to point out is when she sees two of something. "Look Papi, two..two!!….two umbrellas!" She points out two items in the world often. It's cool to see that this abstract concept of two is making sense to her and that she can apply it so easily to concrete objects. This amazes me in adults, the comprehension of abstract numeric representation, so it's extra neat to get to watch the ability develop in my children. While talking about Ana, it's worth mentioning that she is just talking more and more in general. She expresses thoughts and has conversations with her brother. She is adorable.

Tami:

I have been referring to Tami as my hot college girlfriend. Why? Because she is. Tami is still the primary provider for our children, full time business owner, and now a grad school student, too. And my hot girlfriend. She has a lot of important rolls. I like to tease her that at least after we spend a bunch of money on her education she will get a big raise and promotion at her company. You know, since she owns the company so she doesn't need any more qualifications. But I know this is a family that likes to learn for the fun of learning.

Enzo:

Enzo wrote his own name. Yes, he wrote his name! Tami showed this to me (see picture above) and told me how Enzo wrote his name saying "E...Z....O" as he wrote out the characters. Purposeful writing! Since then I have seen him write an E (it looked kind of like an F) as he declared "E" and say "look Papi, an X" as he crossed a fork and knife on the table. Awesome.

Also regarding Enzo, that stutter went away. I guess it was disfluenncy after all. Human development is fascinating. It's like it never happened and stopped pretty soon after I wrote about it. What hasn't stopped is the accumulation of new phrases. Today I heard for the first time, after I asked him if he was hungry, "Papi, I'm starrrrrving!." What? I don't think so Kid.

One of my minor missions in life is to assure kids that, despite the standard iconography of a moon for night and a sun for day, the moon has nothing to do with night other than that it appears bright at night and so it stands out. It's up in the day just as often as it's up in the night. But kid's books seems to be against me as well as some otherwise great educational children's cartoons. So, I was quite happy a few days back when Enzo started telling me "the moon is up in the day or night but the sun is not Papi it can't be up at night, only in the day." Yeah!.

Me:

When I was in high school, this was my dream motorcycle. And part of the daydream was to ride it to school. And now I do. So cool.

 

Marriage:
Tami and I have been married 8 years! She was in Puerto Rico on the big day and so we have postponed the celebration. When she got back I was working a lot and it just made sense to wait and get the kids and us back into routine. But now, It is time to celebrate. Tomorrow is the day; 8 years and 1 month of marriage! We have a special day planned.

More Tami:
Speaking of anniversary, Tami is pretty creative. When she left for Puerto Rico she gave me an envelope to open when I got back home. In it was a sweet note and a clue to find a hidden envelope in the house. It turned out to be quite a scavenger hunt with envelopes taped behind framed photos and under counters and in cabinets. The discovery of each required the decoding of a clue which seemed to become progressively more challenging. They had instructions on the outside for when to open after found. Inside each was a sweet message and the next clue right up to our actual anniversary. Tami can be pretty sweet and mushy and creative. The last envelope, the one found on our anniversary, was hidden behind the framed picture of a Dahlia that I had given her as an anniversary present years ago. Dahlias were our wedding flower. Sometimes Tami almost sounds like a romantic, even  if it did take her several years before she finally memorized that we were married in '05.

Ok, here are some more pics from lately:

The Vega family was visiting from Oregon and we got to spend some time with them which is always a treat.

Me and the kids went for a walk at the park.

And I even went to an A's game with the family. Here is Ana playing with Tata.