sushi-go-round

Posted on July 30, 2009 - Filed Under food, kiddo life | 2 Comments

This is our favorite restaurant.

It’s this bottom-tier, but still yummy, sushi place that sends plates of sushi around the room on a conveyor belt. It’s sushi baggage claim! Can you see the little plates going around in the picture? The kids adore that part.
And this: the eating.

At the sushi-go-round, the color of the plate tells [...]

let the right one in

Posted on July 28, 2009 - Filed Under reviews | 2 Comments

  
“Let the RIght One In” is the best vampire movie, ever, in all the history of vampire movies. Period. What more could you possibly need to know? Go. Now. Netflix it, rent it, buy a copy, whatever. Watch this movie.
And don’t, DON’T, watch the dubbed version. Go into the ’set up’ menu on your DVD [...]

poof, another room

Posted on July 27, 2009 - Filed Under alternative building | 1 Comment

We are in the process of moving into the Noah House. I don’t mean moving out of the yurt, just adding the Noah House as another room in our weird, Tiny House Compound. As I mentioned here, Paul finished the interior trim last weekend and, although there is still a punch list of thing to [...]

in which we go to the zoo and have a marvelous time

Posted on July 22, 2009 - Filed Under adventures, kiddo life | 1 Comment

What? You’ve never been to the North Carolina Zoo? You should go! It’s a terrific zoo. I never get that awful feeling I’ve gotten at some other zoos, that feeling of looking at bored, unhappy critters in captivity. The NC Zoo animals all have these terrific, huge, natural habitats and are often busy doing activities [...]

sibling win

Posted on July 20, 2009 - Filed Under kiddo life | 1 Comment

I was just going through some pictures and I kept noticing great shots of Sophie and Luc having a good time together. I was struck by it, because I spend a lot of energy helping them negotiate the latest trauma. (“I want the rainbow tank top!” “No, I want it!” “I had it first!” “But [...]

today’s news from the yurt

Posted on July 18, 2009 - Filed Under food, kiddo life, mayalife | 1 Comment

Today Paul finishes the interior of the Noah House! We’re so excited. The paper will come off the walnut floors, the tools and sawdust will be removed, and we’ll bust a bottle of champagne on the deck. Well, okay, probably not bust it. But I might have one of my pomegranate martini’s, or as Sophie [...]

i think in digital

Posted on July 14, 2009 - Filed Under geeklife | 4 Comments

I realized yesterday, with a start, that my thinking about books has shifted to a digital model, without my noticing it had happened. It freaked me out a little because, hey, I’m a book lover. My standard answer to “what do you want for [birthday/christmas/holiday/etc]?” has always been BOOKS. Or, in the last few years, [...]

obama on mount rushmore

Posted on July 9, 2009 - Filed Under adventures | 6 Comments

My cousin got arrested yesterday. Not normally something you proclaim to the world. But here, look what he did:

That’s right. My cousin is one of the Greenpeace rock climbers who put up the Stop Global Warming banner on Mount Rushmore. No kidding!
When I first heard about it, I thought, a banner? Dude, what good is [...]

when goat mamas won’t nurse their kids

Posted on July 9, 2009 - Filed Under goats | 4 Comments

Last year we had Fancy as a first freshener (that’s what they call a first time goat mama, you gotta love goat terminology). Fancy was a bottle-fed baby herself, which is why I think she was totally confused about the whole mother thing. What the H-H-HELL are these creatures, she seemed to say, and W-W-WHY [...]

time warp

Posted on July 8, 2009 - Filed Under mayalife | Leave a Comment

There is this heavy, sweet, somnolent feeling that comes with playing in the water under a bright sun, like some kind of hypnotic trance.
When I was a kid, my extended family used to rent a cottage on the sound side of the Outer Banks of NC, and my cousin and I would spend all morning [...]