Mopas... Escobas... Limpiadores

This morning we awoke to the sounds of many birds, a neighbor singing,  mufflerless motorcycles, faraway construction, and the door-to-door sing-song announcement of the man selling cleaning supplies.

It's good to be back in Honduras!

Final Days

How does a person convey the experiences and happenings of the last days of summer vacation?  With words, it's a bit hard.  Of course you can imagine the tearful goodbyes.  There was laughter, reminiscence and hopeful talk of visits to Honduras.  But one of the really cool and surprising things took place in our final hours in Sebastopol.

We arrived in California 7 weeks ago with 4 suitcases.  We were trying to stuff our newly acquired treasures into 7 suitcases AND do a nice clean-up job at the last house that we were house-sitting at.  As the minutes and moments ticked away, we grew increasingly testy and frustrated by how the last 10% of stuff was taking 90% of our time to figure out what to do with it.  Then a cleaning sprite showed up at the house.  Not a Mary Poppins, not a professional, not a certified organizer.  Rather, a New Yorker in a brown Volvo with a can-do attitude who took charge and took a lot of stuff off of our hands.  She even brought her 2 kids to entertain ours while we hurried about.  Kim arrived and started sweeping,  recycling and generally keeping us focused so that we'd get out of the house by our 6 pm deadline. 

We made it out by 6 and then I think Kim's true motivation started shining through as she gleefully announced that we were going with her to Aubergine for a celebratory shot of tequila and beer.

So, after the whirlwind packing session, we got to slow way down and kick it at Aubergine, then make our way into San Francicso for a great dinner with Bruce, then off to the airport for our 1:30 am flight.  The flight went off without a hitch and we arrived in Tegucigalpa this morning just after 9am.  As we approached the city and the airplane made its signature hard bank to position itself towards the runway, we looked out the window and could see our house, the school, El Picacho, people!!  What a great bienvenidos to the city.

Here's a little of what we did during our last weeks on California...

At our camp in Lassen Nat'l Park

A boy and fire

A beautiful afternoon rain shower near Drakesbad Lodge.

A hike to a lake near Plumas Eureka State Park.

Drawing time during an afternoon rain shower.

July 29th came a little early as we celebrated

Linnea's 5th birthday with her friends at a park.

Some of the sweet friends who could come!

Angel Island and July 4th

In Tiburon near the ferry before  getting on the boat to go to Angel Island State Park.

We took our bikes and rode on the 5 mile perimeter road.  We all did pretty good riding up the hills.  Linnea took it easy in the bike trailer.

Bay Bridge, San Francisco and Alcatraz Island.

Waiting for the ferry to take us back to Tiburon.

4th of July with safe and sane smoke bombs in a wheel barrow.

Father's Day and a Festival

We celebrated a 2nd Father's Day on June 20.  The first was Honduran Father's Day, back in March.  This time we got to celebrate Eric, Bruce and Jim.  Although dads are supposed to relax on their special day,  was too excited to make pizza and ribs.  What more could a dad ask for that pizza and ribs?  Oh yeah, beer.

Eric and Linnea taking his new hammock for a test drive.  

It's a winner... they were both asleep within 15 minutes. 

Then we were off the to Kate Wolf Festival.  The music was great.  Seeing old friends was great.  Watching Linnea paint Eric's toenails was great.

Game of Blink in the music meadow near the Main Stage.

Beauty Shop

Learning how to spin a plate.

Kate Wolf Music Festival and Other Happenings in Northern California

                                                                                                                        We're heading off to the Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival in a couple of days.  I grew up listening to my parents play her songs on the record player while the late afternoon sun would filter through the wooden shutters of our west-facing windows.  The sunlight would hit the dark green shag carpet and the tiny bits of dust flying around in the air would be transformed into glinting bits of gold.  The festival started in 1996 to commemorate the life of a singer/song writer who died of Leukemia in 1986.  Some of the first songs that I learned to play on the guitar were "Give Yourself to Love" and "Across the Great Divide".  I'll learn "Green Eyes" someday, but it's always been a bit melancholic for me and I haven't made the space to learn it yet.

The line-up at this year's festival is amazing.  We're looking forward to hearing/seeing The Waifs, Hot Buttered Rum,  David Grisman, Ani Di Franco, Po' Girl, Greg Brown, Poor Man's Whisky, Little Feat and a whole bunch of other great musicians playing under the magical oak trees near Laytonville.  Of course, there is also Kidlandia for the kids and lots o' good food and drink for the adults.  Ben and Jerry's ice cream bars, too.  But they always melt too quickly in the heat, and they're poorly frozen to begin with...

I think this will be our 4th or 5th year going, the first being in oh-three when D was just 6 months old.  In between music performances, we'll swim in the river, hang out at camp with friends and catch up with the great northern California vibe that we miss so much.

E took the van up to the festival today to start working for our tickets.  He's worked the back-stage kitchen for several years now, earning a free ticket for his work.  I am supposing that the van is now parked under a shady shelter and he is busy setting up the portable kitchen or cooking some delicious concoction and meeting interesting people.  He met Pepe Lobo, for God's sake.  If you can meet the president of Honduras, you're bound to meet anyone.  So, I will travel north tomorrow with kids and my parents in their camper and we'll camp somewhere along the way.  Then we will go to the festival Friday morning.

So what's been going on in Sebastopol?  Meeting up with friends, seeing great live music right downtown, riding our bikes to swim lessons, to My Friend Joe's, and to Farmer's Market.  Last week at Farmer's Market we had the most delicious huevos rancheros.  While we were eating our meal, met up with Danielle, who grows the greens that the whole meal was bedded on.  Gotta love Sebastopol and its locavore priorities.

Selena and I went to San Francisco yesterday, visiting the de Young Museum to see the Impressionist exhibition.  We ate at a great pan-asian restaurant, walked through great neighborhoods while I froze my ass off in the typical breezy, foggy SF summer night.  Despite the cold, I was struck by the heart-breaking beauty of the fog, the ocean and the romance of the city.  We were able to sleep-in in our cute, cheap, windowless North Beach hotel room this morning until 10:00 where we then walked out our hotel, down an alley, and around a corner to "Pat's" for breakfast.

Friday June 18

                                       

1 part Mother Hips

+

    1 part Hopmonk

= a really good time

Translation:

Mother Hips tonight at Hopmonk!

Back in California

Our first week back has flown by in the blink of an eye.  We were greeted last Friday night with a great party in the old neighborhood.  We have already taken our first road trip to see Gail, Mimi and Grantpa.  The trip was great and spending time with Gail was long overdue.  We had fun playing with her wigs.

Blond and Brunette? or Brunette and Blond?

We also saw Kevin play a game in his baseball tournament.  Here he's playing catcher, but he also plays 1st and 3rd and sometimes pitches.

                                           

Cousins...

At Mimi's house.

Playing at Oso de Oro Park with Reed.

We're looking forward to Farmer's Market tomorrow morning and the kids will start swim lessons on Monday.  It's like we never left!  We've had some great IPA's, eaten a lot of fresh strawberries and picked up our bikes today from Jessie's basement.  Linnea is riding Dempsey's first two-wheeler (with training wheels).  We're also looking forward to the Honduras vs Chile game on Wednesday.

packing up

We're making preparations to come home.  Got the packing started this morning.