Garage sale!

So, today was the day of the Irvington Garage Sale -- the one that I've been prepping for for, oh, about a month now; decluttering the house, piling useless old stuff into banker's boxes all over the dining room, living room and bedroom. Finally I could get it out into the open and SELL it. Yay!

(We also cleaned out the garage, including three boxes of old beer bottles that Drew had collected from the 1990s. He has dragged it to every residence we've lived in together, and he finally assented to me emptying the boxes and throwing out the bottles. Now if I could just get him to clean up his work space downstairs....)

The forecast was for rain, but we got a good five hours in before it really started pouring and I had to tote things back up to the garage. Rachel was fantastically helpful setting things up in the morning; she kept carrying stuff down from the garage to the street completely voluntarily. (I had to get two tires patched and rotated first thing, so I didn't get to start selling until 10 or so). We got rid of an old bike and one of Rachel's strollers and some other things -- and I snagged a camp chair for $2 down the street and a storage bin system for Rachel's room for $30. We still managed to clear a nice chunk of change, and I met some really nice people. All in all, a good day.

Then it was off to our friend Sarah's house. Her son Noah was with his dad, but he and Rachel talked by iPhone. And oh, did they talk!! "I want Rachel back!" Noah kept saying. He taught her her first knock-knock joke and they had a fine time talking for about 20 minutes. He'll be at her birthday party next weekend, one lone boy among a passel of giggling girls. He's a nice kid, though; I'm sure he'll be able to handle the attention.

Sarah, her boyfriend Mike, Drew and I sat around talking long into the evening while Rachel amused herself in Noah's upstairs bedroom, finding toys to play with and things to color (and when I finally came to get her, there were ink smudges up and down her arms). She really didn't want to go and pouted a bit, but was asleep by the time the 10-minute car ride was over.

Cute Rachel sayings:

"Mommy, I'm not afraid of ANYTHING," Rachel said at breakfast this morning. "Ask me!"
"Are you afraid of monsters?" I asked.
"Noo," she said.
"How about dogs? You used to be afraid of dogs," I said.
"Only when they bark," she said. "They hurt my ears, and that's why I'm afraid of them."

***

One garage sale customer decided to tease Rachel a bit and offered her 5 cents for her little chair (she had dragged it outside to sit in, but ended up drawing chalk pictures on the sidewalk. It was so cute!!)
"No," she laughed.
"10 cents," he offered.
"Nooo!"
"Five dollars!" he said.
"NOOO!" she answered. "You have no choice!"

***

Last night as we were reminding Rachel about the garage sale, she suddenly shouted, "Come to our garage sale and buy some stuff!" and then she turned to us and asked, "Do you have a microphone??"

Fundraising night

I'm a board member of the Oregon Area Jewish Committee, and as such I often am called upon to do volunteer things like dialing for dollars, which I did tonight. Amy, the group's development director, graciously offered her 11-year-old daughter, Emily, as babysitting help for Rachel while I made phone calls. Emily's younger sister, Abigail, who has Downs Syndrome, was also there. We got pizza and salad, perfect for Rachel since I worried whether she'd get anything to eat. I also worried about whether she'd have enough to amuse her so I packed a backpack (actually, Drew packed it) full of books and crayons.

I needn't have worried. Rachel was a little shy at first, but then spotted John Moss, the head of OAJC, and after he asked her if she remembered him, she immediately reached out her little arms; he picked her up and she hugged him and cuddled on his lap while I brought her dinner. He had a lovely time talking to her and kept remarking on how beautiful she is and what a great talker. I could tell he was overwhelmed at her outpouring of affection, since he has two adult kids and is at the stage where he would really like grandkids in a few years.

The actual dialing for dollars was painless and didn't take that long. When I finished up, Rachel was happily ensconced in Emily's lap, watching a video on Amy's iPad. She started whining and crying when I said it was time to leave, but stopped pretty quickly when I threated her with no story if she continued. (As partial compensation I gave her half a molasses cookie on the way home). She whined that she was hungry when we got back, and I told her that she couldn't have any more cookies. "How about raspberries?" she said, and I poured a small bowl of the ones I'd picked from our backyard yesterday. Then we read a story, washed and brushed and I cuddled with her a little in bed. She kept trying to keep me from leaving, and I told her it wasn't fair -- all I wanted to do was cuddle and laugh and tickle with her all night but I couldn't because I had things to do. Damn adulthood, it gets in the way of me showing my daughter how much I love her.

Cute Rachel sayings from tonight:

"I'm going to grow up, Mommy," Rachel said.
"No, you're not," I replied. "I won't let  you."
(This has become one of our favorite parlor games).
"Yes, I am," she said.
"Will you visit me once in a while?" I pleaded.
"You can visit me every night!" she responded. "You can babysit my kids!"
"I would LOVE to babysit your kids, Rachel!" I replied.

***

In the car on the way home we were talking about my chorus's performances on Sunday, one of which Rachel will attend (there's a matinee at 2 and an evening show at 7).

"Oh my, and Ryan will love my pink dress!' Rachel said. "I can sing next to you on the risers and hold your hand!"

She truly believes Ryan will "discover" her and make her a star.

Rachel knows she's the grownup and we're the kids

Tonight we were talking about Drew heading to Seattle tomorrow. He joked that he'd love to take Rachel up with him, and she agreed, and then he laughed and said, "What would you do while I worked?"

"I could sign letters!" Rachel said.
"That's a good idea," I said. "What else would you do?"
"If I asked you to get me a snack, would you do that?" Drew asked Rachel.
"Yes!" Rachel said.
"It's like having my own P.A.!" Drew said.
"Your own butler!" Rachel countered.

***

Last night Rachel said, "When you and Mommy die, and Tia Daniella and Jojo die, then Valerie and I will have to be nice to each other!"

Drew was a bit taken aback and reminded her that he hopes she and Valerie will be nice to each other before then...

***

Tonight Rachel told me to eat my salad. It had been a long day for me; I spent the morning cleaning out the kitchen and tossing old equipment that we never use in preparation for next week's neighborhood garage sale (and I will spare you the details of what a time-consuming, occasionally disgusting job it was, but at least I have a completely full bag for the Yom Kippur donations to the needy), then raced off to an extra choreography session for my chorus, then back home and cooked dinner (after having made banana pudding yesterday for a party and gingerbread for us because Rachel had asked so nicely for it), so I was a little tired at dinner.

"Mommy, eat your salad!" Rachel ordered.
"She's taking a rest," Drew said.
"You need to eat your salad to grow big and strong," Rachel said. "Otherwise you'll get old and weak!" And then she added to Drew, "I'm giving Mommy good advice!"

Yes, honey, you are, except that I'm going to get old and weak no matter how many salads I eat.

Busy, busy life

Well, it has been quite a week: Good things at work and outside of work that I can't quite talk about yet, plus being plagiarized by Portland's leading candidate for mayor! Doesn't get much more surreal than that. But I'm not the one you want to read about, right? It's RACHEL.

We have been reading these fairy books that are British imports. They're about two little girls, Rachel and Kirsty, who are best friends AND they're friends of the fairies (who are constantly fighting off efforts by Jack Frost and his goblins to ruin things). Every once in a while the fairies call on the girls to help them, and the girls sometimes get to change into fairies themselves in the process. As Drew describes the books, they are barely Americanized to suit U.S. tastes -- he has read a couple of references to castles in Scotland -- but there are about 100 in the series: Bella the candy fairy, Mia the bridesmaid fairy, etc. etc. Rachel LOVES THEM. (There's even a "camp fairy," which is great because she's going to have to go to summer camp in a few years).

So now everything is fairies in our house. We constantly have to pretend we're fairies, or treat Rachel like she's a fairy. Or a unicorn. The other day, Rachel said, "I"m Rachel, the Book Fairy! Fairyland should DEFINITELY have a Book Fairy!"

How can you not love this kid?

Vacation!

We're having a lovely time in Seattle. Got into town in time to see the King Tut exhibit Saturday afternoon (after mind-numbing traffic for no discernible reason, which enraged me so much that I exited the car and stomped over to the Pacific Science Center to get our tickets and wait for Drew and Rachel to park). It was worth the hassle -- the exhibit is incredible. Simply incredible. Rachel was particularly taken with King Tut's "gold flip-flops" (the sandals found on his feet that were made of gold hammered with a pattern of thrush on the bottom). She loved the gold jewelry and I hope she remembers at least some of what she saw, since this supposedly will be the last time the artifacts come to North America (until, Drew cynically says, the Egyptian government needs money). It likely will be the last time Drew and I see them in our lifetime, unless we get to the Middle East, because the last time they were here was...35 years ago.

Then we headed to Anne and David and Grandma Jean's for dinner. I note here that all of them are more technologically savvy than Drew and I put together, and how did we spend the evening after dinner? Teaching Rachel to play marbles! We were all having a great time shooting them back and forth (and Jean is still a great player; arthritis hasn't slowed her down a bit) and Rachel was so enchanted with the game that she asked Drew at dinner tonight if he would buy her a little sack of marbles for her birthday (which likely he will). After dinner and many hints from Rachel, she and I changed into our bathing suits and went into the hot tub. Rachel practiced her floating, using a foam noodle, while Anne and I talked, and then David joined us and he and I talked (with constant interruptions from Rachel who, at one point, decided she was emceeing a show on a boat, grabbed the noodle and pretended it was a microphone and said, "turn your cell phones off. Have a good time. I said, have a good time!" and cracked us both up).

We were in until 11:15 and I suddenly realized that, hey, Rachel is not even 4 and it was long past her bedtime. She very matter-of-factly went upstairs and fell asleep on the cot that Anne had prepared in her study, while Mommy and Daddy slept downstairs (and I got the best sleep I've gotten in DAYS).

This morning Rachel and I gave Drew his Father's Day gift (cargo pants and a shirt that Rachel picked out from Eddie Bauer, both of which Drew really liked), Drew and Rachel called PopPop while I was in the shower, and then we headed out to a great breakfast place called the Maltby Cafe where we met Amanda and Jenn. Amanda and Jenn were very impressed that Rachel waited patiently until our names were called and never fussed during breakfast. She insisted on sitting between Drew and Uncle David, whom she is rapidly developing a big crush on -- she kept hugging him and climbing into his arms and asking him to tell her stories. "Uncle Dave is silly, isn't he?" she said in the car as we left, and we had to agree.:)

We spent the rest of the afternoon at a playground near the Woodland Park Zoo and Rachel, Drew and I took turns chasing each other and trying to catch and tickle each other. The park was filled with dads chasing their kids, and I called out to one of them, "This is Father's Day! You're supposed to be relaxing!" to which he replied, panting, "I get the privilege of chasing around my kids!" When we got back into the car, Rachel fell asleep while Drew took me around some of Seattle's neighborhoods, and then we checked into our hotel near the Space Needle. Rachel was awed by the view of it from our hotel room.

Then we went to Ivar's, a classic seafood restaurant, where Rachel was very nice to the waiter and tried to hug him at one point. Whereupon, as Drew and I were having a very serious career talk...the waiter brought Rachel a dish of blueberry ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top, totally spontaneously -- and he got his hug from our daughter. There's something about Rachel that makes people stop and smile and give her treats. As soon as she figures this out for herself, we are doomed.

Now Drew is putting her to bed after giving her a much-needed bath; we are going to hang out in the lobby downstairs for a bit and then take him to work early tomorrow morning. I think Rachel and I will go to the top of the Space Needle ("we'll be able to see the whole CITY!" she exclaimed), meet Daddy for lunch, then maybe go to the aquarium until we have to pick Drew up from work and head to an Italian restaurant I'm writing about for the magazine I edit. I need to do some interviews at 5:30, and then we will eat dinner, change Rachel into her pajamas and head home, hopefully to arrive by 11 and put her to bed.

This is really a great city. We need to come here more often.

sick mommy

Came home from work last night with an achy sore throat and general tiredness, probably because of the two nights this week that I stayed up until 1 a.m. (one of those nights was when Drew came home from DC). This is eerily reminiscent of when he came home from Columbia and my entire body collapsed. Not that Rachel is a difficult kid to single parent, but she's at the age where she requires A LOT of engagement -- telling her stories, answering her questions, listening to her chatter on about her day and about life in general. It's fantastic but occasionally draining.

So I had just enough energy last night to eat some pasta and sausage soup. I lay down before dinner and Rachel brought me, without asking, two of her blankets (she folded them up and put them under my head for me to use as pillows); her doll Elizabeth, a plastic horse ("to keep you extra company"), and a toy cupcake. She was so tender and gentle as she gave me kiss that I told her she'd make a GREAT mommy someday. Hell, if her bedside manner is this good when she gets older, she should consider a career in medicine.

This morning I decided to take off work, so I slept most of the day. But I was determined to go to an evening performance of "Penelope," a modern retelling of Odysseus from the point of view of Penelope's suitors. We picked up Rachel from preschool, dashed over to Kenny & Zuke's for a quick dinner (and it was quick, we got served faster than we usually do), then our babysitter Angela, who manages the box office for the theater company that put on "Penelope," watched Rachel while we watched the play. Then she and Rachel took the bus to our house (which Rachel loved), and I went out for fondue with my friend Russ from Willamette and his partner, Andy, who got us the tickets for the play. (Drew had forgotten to give Angela the keys so he had to race home, get them to her and join us later). We just got home a little while ago, Drew took Angela home (she moved to an apartment close by, so the drive home wasn't that long) and I am heading to bed because I feel crummy again.

We have a full weekend ahead -- I need to head to Seattle for some interviews for a story for the magazine, so we decided to spend a couple days up there. Tomorrow we have tickets to see the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center, then we're going to Anne and David and Grandma Jean's house for dinner and a sleepover, then meeting Amanda and Jenn for brunch, and then...the whole afternoon is free. We're thinking of taking Rachel to the children's museum or the aquarium. Then Monday we're dropping Drew off at work, I'll take Rachel to the Space Needle and maybe another museum, and we'll meet Daddy for lunch then head to a block party at 5 p.m. where my interviews will take place. Then back to Portland where we hope to arrive by 11 p.m. We're hoping Rachel sleeps in the car.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Rachel's first book reading

..I skipped chorus rehearsal tonight because Drew is flying back from DC and I can't make Rachel sit through an entire rehearsal. So, we went to a book reading instead. A former colleague of mine from the Oregonian, Peter Zuckerman, wrote a book about the K2 hiking disaster in 2008 that killed 11 people in a day. It's considered one of the worst climbing disasters in history and Peter tells it from the point of view of the sherpas who guided the expedition. No other mountain disaster books that have been written tell anything about the sherpas, so Peter's book is getting wide acclaim. As it should.

I picked Rachel up from preschool, we found a parking space at Powell's -- the last one -- and went next door to Sizzle Pie for great pizza and salad. She was quite well behaved during the hourlong book reading, although a little restless toward the end -- completely understandable -- and she kept whispering questions about K2 during the reading. I promised I'd tell her more in the car on the way home and she wanted to know EVERYTHING -- what K2 is, why people died on the mountain, what the mountain is made of, how snow can kill people, etc. Truthfully I couldn't answer much, and finally I resorted to telling her, "I don't know, sweetie. I have to read the book."

During one particularly harrowing account that Peter read, Rachel turned to me and exclaimed, "I'll NEVER climb K2! Will you??"

"Imagine being one of the 11 people that were DYING!" she said while brushing her teeth.

And before she went to bed:

"I wish I could stay up and read books ALL NIGHT!" she said. "Do you?"
"Honestly, Rachel?" I answered.
She nodded.
"Yeah, I do," I said.