We love The Goose's preschool. Outside her classroom, they have their family board. "Popcorn" background decorated by the kids, a photo from the family, and the kid's description of their family, faithfully transcribed by the preschool teachers.
"Puppies are a lot of work."
That comes out of my mouth about 46 times a day.
Ballet class.
Bret Harte Night at Chuck E. Cheese -- profits go to our PTA. Sigh. The Goose and her pal Katie, jammin' out to Guitar Hero.
I found this under my bed the other day. ARLO.
Last Wednesday, The Goose and I braved the 5 southbound to join her class trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific. The traffic was terrible. The aquarium was awesome.
The Goose's class had a little class with a scientist and their own touch tank.
Starfish.
A sea slug. (Blaaaarrrrgh.)
A horn shark.
The horn shark is the wee little (18-24-inch long) sharks that Oscar and I were delighted to find swimming around our feet a couple weeks ago at the beach. Their mouths are the size of nickels and they are quite docile.
Oh man, this was my FAVORITE. Horn sharks are gestated in a egg case. At the aquarium, the handlers can carefully slice away a window in the egg case and replace it with a transparent pane of plastic. If you watch this video, you can see an egg case that's just about to hatch, surrounded by newly-hatched sharklings, and then over to an egg case that still needs another month's gestation -- but you can watch the fetus sloshing around in the egg case.
To the sea lion tank! The Goose and her friend Will are enthralled.
Outside! To the NEXT touch tank. Mature horn sharks and manta rays.
Into the little bird enclosure. My lovely Michala found herself covered in birds, just like she's always covered in children.
Michala was the first person in CA who took me under her wing, recognized my soul-sucking homesickness, and told me it would all be okay. She was right. We love her -- me, and The Goose, and the birds.
The Goose took her nectar-feeding very seriously.
Upstairs, to coo over penguins and pat rays. They were super friendly. Like puppies.
Puppies are a lot of work.
I suffer from short term memory loss. It runs in my family...
At least I think it does...
Where are they?
Our last touch tank, where The Goose gingerly poked jellyfish, very aware of the danger (since we just watched Finding Nemo in 3D last week. )
What an incredible aquarium. Most aquariums have one touch tank -- this one had at least six. We came home and the boys were TICKED that The Goose had such an adventure without them. This was our first trip to Long Beach and we are planning on another during the holidays when the grandparents are in town. Long Beach also has The Midway (an aircraft carrier now serving as a museum รก la Intrepid) and the Queen Mary, a lighthouse, and a gorgeous marina.
My dad served on an aircraft carrier and has been dying to take Oscar on a tour. I hope we'll get to that during their Thanksgiving visit.
We hung out at the park with The Goose's Stella. We love Stella. She's an only child, and she is delighted by her adopted big brothers. And they adore her. Well, Arlo just loves her dog. And her mom.
See this little guy? He's an immature alligator lizard. He likes to hang out in our doorjamb and dart into the house when we open the front door. Like 7 times in two weeks.
We let him go. This time.
Waiting for the brothers to get out of karate, and looking very much like a California Girl.
Here's me, also waiting for the brothers to get out of karate. For the love of Pete, kid, I'm reading Mary Doria Russell and basking in the California sun. Go take pictures of something else.
Okay, just go be all cute up there. That will work.
Dinner. Mescalin-stuffed grilled swordfish on a bed of Israeli couscous tossed with grilled heirloom tomatoes and a side of grilled squash. Yum.
Saturday. Oscar and I went to the Cinerama Dome for the Cinerama Festival. It was on my radar since I wanted to let my friend Mike know when tickets for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World went on sale. When they did, I frantically texted his wife and noticed that something called The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm was playing. I threw caution to the winds and bought one adult and one child ticket.
I was expecting that Oscar would be one of the youngest kids at the showing. I didn't expect that I would also be one of the youngest viewers.
We waited in line with a guy about a decade older that me who gushed about the movie. He saw it in NY when he was about Oscar's age. He drew the dragon (just like our friend Carlin!) incessantly and treasured his copy of the movie program.
One of the projectionists came out to introduce the film. He also introduced Russ Tamblyn, who starred in one of the substories (as a dancing prince) and was, of course, Riff in the movie of West Side Story.
Russ (Can I call you Russ?) was super duper charming and talked for a while about how awful it was to act in a Cinerama picture. One had to emote not to the actor in front of you, but to a mark a couple feet away. He's the only actor to have appeared in two Cinerama features (The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and How the West was Won).
But what's more...
He brought his friends from West Side Story, George Chakiris (Bernando) and the indomitable Rita Moreno (Anita). They were about ten feet away from me. SWOON.
During the intermission, we checked out the Cinerama camera in the lobby. The Cinerama technology used one camera shooting three negative at different angles. I've seen films in the Dome before but I've never seen a Cinerama film. Although the print (the only one in existence) was not in the best shape, Oscar and I had a wonderful time, seeing this fun movie and chatting with all the film geeks around us.
On the way out, I managed to sidle up to Russ, shake his hand, and thank him for being there. I didn't approach Rita. I would have been a puddle.
As Oscar and I left the theater, we heard a call from the line. My college pal Peter Avellino was waiting for the next Cinerama showing. I gushed about the movie, got a lovely hug from a dear old friend, and roundly embarrassed my son. What a great day.
Remember that lizard that keeps darting into our house? We obliged him.
His name is Manda Croco Sneaky Brockway Metcalf. Extra Brockway+Metcalf points to you if you can cite the pop-culture significance to one of those names.
After a couple days, including a trip to preschool, his jar was getting suspiciously foggy. We decided to let him go.
After a spate of Stockholm Syndrome, Manda finally took off.
We're keeping an eye out for him. It's been a full day and he hasn't tried to sneak into the house yet.
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