California: happy birthday Isabella!

I’m coming to the realization today that it’s slightly less cool to have spent time recently in California than we had thought, due to swine flu (the name of which makes me laugh, it’s so Clouseau).  We loved every minute of our time with Aunty Izzy, Gramma Sally, Tiny Mo, little Luca Paul, Uncle Mo and his family, Maximus, Maha and Said and their boys, Rowan, Dawn and Garry… especially those moments spent eating Mexican food, and even the moments in the emergency room at 4a.m. dying laughing (pun intended) about MRSA.  Upon arrival we went straight to the Ferry Market to get provisions, because Boyers need to eat, and were overjoyed by the plethora of raisins, cheeses at the Cowgirl Creamery and Acme Bread’s finest… then I went up to Montana to work for a week and hang out with Kaolin and Wich, and Gabriel played cowboy with Gramma Sally, Aunty Izzy and Tiny Mo.  Then there was a great birthday party in the Stockton Children’s Museum where the kids ran around and sat in fire trucks and on police motorcycles and Izzy and i dragged around after them trying to claim the ambulance or the city bus with its wide seats, as a good spot to take a nap.  The trip to Stockton gave us a chance to see our very favorite eolian farm… on Monday, we went into the city, rode on a cable car, ate the best dim sum the iphone could find (at the restaurant with the greatest name:  Good Mong Kok Bakery), crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge and back…and one of the days after that little Luca Paul came down with pneumonia (or was it swine flu?) so we got to visit the Stanford Emergency room too.   We’re just now catching up with Romance Standard Time and as always, are amazed at Aunty Izzy’s generosity, style, organizational ability, and mostly her sense of humor and all this on less than 5 hours per night of sleep.  We love you!  Thank you for letting us come over and play at your house for awhile… and happy birthday!

Cip’s pet worm

Cipriano Armenteros the talking cat (he says hello, and sometimes “hi”), has never been much of a hunter, unlike his older sibling Max.   Max is happiest with a fieldmouse in his maw and skulks around like an adolescent, fleeing from battles over Maffaien primacy with Dipuce, (but he is always there for a hug if needed).  One day though we were out in the garden with Cip and noticed him looking at something fixedly for a few minutes, gently nudging it with his paw.  It was a worm, and Cip sat there for long time, never hurting it, just watching over his new friend.  I do not know whether he understood that it was a separate being, or if it seemed to him that a part of the topsoil had begun to move.  The worm went back underground, and Cip went off to prowl elsewhere.

Also, before we left for San Francisco and other points west, we got to see the very first blossoms on the plum tree open; our timing was inadvertently impeccable, on the very day we arrived home, the plum blossoms had been replaced by leaves, and the lilacs first bloomed.

Seven years

12 kids, 2 hours, and a treasure hunt that took them a scant 15 minutes.  The rest of the time they ran in circles too quickly to be caught on film, and seemed to be attracted like fluttering moths to either the barbed-wire fence, (sorry about that jacket, Madame X), or seeing how many chocolate coins they could fit in their stomachs at once.  Gabriel and his friends had a great time and screaming and balloon popping were favored activities.  After everyone else had either exploded into small pieces from surconsommation of sugar or had just gone home, Mathieu, Gabriel’s teacher, stopped by to say hello and be generally adored by Dorine, Noëmie and Gabriel.

This is the end

As Maffay is my witness, i shall never live in a mobile home again, or:  if it’s absolutely necessary, and only in summertime somewhere with mild temperatures and no rain and then, only for less than two (2) nights.

The casablanca served us well, and was a home-in-the-yard-of-our-home for one year, one month, and 4 days.  Jacky tractored it down to Montreuil sur Ille, and i didn’t follow along weeping behind it, nor were dirges hummed.  It’s now in greener pastures, and is no longer taking up space in the middle of ours.  And we can see all the way out to the barn now from the kitchen sink, which is, to some, a  more uplifting view than the side of a white mobile home.

Radiant (wood) heat

Wall, G’s bedroom.

Simon and Olivier came back about a month ago and put down the upstairs heated floor:  just to keep track, we now have the following layers on the upstairs floor:  the floorboards, which went up a long time ago when Wich was here, then the dammpellets, ported by Willy and Sandra, then two layers of 10mm OSB, and as of their visit on March 7, a layer of Deltareflex, a layer of aluminum-lined water tubing, sandwiched between another 15mm layer of OSB.  One more layer of OSB will be (is being) screwed into the tubing layer (hopefully, not into the tubes) and then there will be parquet.  Hopefully within the next month or so, depending on everything else.

As we were finishing up lunch that day, Jacky stopped by and tractored the mobile home away.

After the floor was laid, Malin and Simone and Klara and Anton came over for dinner…

and a little toad sat outside the door and watched.