When life hands you tomatoes...

...make sauce!

We returned from a week in Hawaii to find our new countertops installed and a bunch of ripe vegetables! Here's what we picked:


I sauteed a yellow onion and two cloves of garlic with three bell peppers I had also picked from the garden. I then added the peeled and seeded tomatoes and simmered the sauce for about two hours. I also threw in some fresh-from-the-garden eggplants and basil.

And voila:



It was delicious!

Kindergarten

It seems like all of my friends' kids are starting kindergarten this week. Hooray for the beginning of their academic careers!

The families we know have completely different parenting philosophies. Some are very structured and have academic conversations whenever possible (around the dinner table, in the car, while camping). Some focus more on emotional and social intelligence; we discovered recently that the kindergartener in this family (who is almost six) doesn't know all of his letters by sight. In fact, we are pretty sure he doesn't know the ABC song. He has been in half-day preschool for two years! I'm sure he will blossom when he gets to school, however. (And if not, hopefully we can help him and be his "academic buddies". Every chance we get, we ask natural questions about letters and numbers; for example, "How many bugs are there in this page of the book we're reading?" "What letters do you see on that sign?" "What letters do you think are in the word bug?") 

A preschool teacher told me recently that there are many right ways to parent. As we are starting to think about our own parenting philosophy, I find comfort in the notion that it's ok to have different styles from the parents next door. Or down the street. Or in our game-playing group.

The other night, a few days before one of our friends started his school career, his younger sister suggested that we "play school." We each put backpacks on and marched around. Then we decided what grade we'd be in. The kindergartener announced he would be in second grade, I suggested I could be in first grade, and the younger sister said that she wanted to be in "half grade." (She then decided she wanted to be in first grade with me since my "class" was going on a field trip to the zoo that day.) The rest of the school day play consisted of wandering around and scribbling in notebooks (not unlike my own academic career, I suppose)! 

One last school story. When I was teaching sixth grade, my co-teacher told all of the parents at back to school night, "I promise not to believe everything your kids tell me about what goes on at home if you promise not to believe everything your kids tell you about what goes on in the classroom." I always found this a little strange since I had not had experience with children not being entirely truthful. Now, however, I think I understand. The evening after our friend's first day in kindergarten, I asked him if his teacher had read him a story. He nodded. "What was it about?" "Oh, it was about Batman. Batman flew around and got this guy and fought that guy and..." [at this point, I tuned out of his story and had to try to suppress a giggle]. When he finished telling me about the story, I said, "Wow, your teacher really told you a story about Batman?" He nodded. I promise not to believe everything I hear about kindergarten!

Eggplants and tomatoes!

Our garden is doing pretty well this summer. We're now consistently getting tomatoes, some cucumbers, eggplants, and string beans. The tomato plants don't look especially bushy, however, and many have many brown leaves and stems. I'm not sure how much longer they'll produce tomatoes.

We've discovered that our favorite varieties this summer are

• Fox cherry
• Black cherry
• Big rainbow
• Aunt Ruby's green (thanks, Teresa!)
• Purple cherokee
• Brandywine from Croatia
• Jersey devil
  

A trip to Monterey

We recently renewed our membership at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and went to visit the new seahorse exhibit there. My favorites were the leafy sea dragons (below). Most of my photos did not come out very well, but I took a video with my Flip cam that I'm still working on editing. Anyone have ideas for good underwater-themed music?

After viewing all of our favorite animals inside, we wandered out to the deck to see what we could see in the Monterey Bay. Right under us, we saw two sea otters frolicking in the surf! I think we saw a mother and baby otter, since the mother kept diving down and bringing back crabs. She then ate most of the crab and the baby came over to finish it off. We were close enough to see the crabs as well as hear their shells crunching as the otters ate them!

From August 2009

Where the cats sleep...

Macgonagall prefers sleeping with the carrots...

...when he's not in his basket!


And Montana just prefers the sun.

One Day's Harvest

Our fruits and vegetables are just starting to produce! We've also picked a handful of purple peppers and one peach. Eggplants are coming soon (and we'll be able to make ratatouille)!

Pasta making!

We had never tried to make pasta before, and it seemed like a fun adventure. For my thirtieth birthday last week, we attempted butternut squash ravioli! We loved the filling (butternut squash and pecans) but decided that the whole effort to make the giant ravioli probably wasn't worth the three hours it took.


They didn't look pretty, but they tasted amazing!

After the ravioli, we made fettuchini with the leftover dough. It was a lot easier since there were fewer steps (we didn't need to lay out the sheets of pasta, fill them, pile another sheet on top, seal them, and cut them).

We put the fettuchini noodles on our clothes drying rack to harden.

We ate them a few days later. Yum! We also made spinach fettuchini the following week, which was extra tasty. I think I win this month's domestic goddess competition!

Congratulations, Shannon!

Shannon graduated with her MFT from Santa Clara University last weekend. Hooray!

Artichokes, sunny cat, and view from a kayak

It's been a busy spring around here! Between running 4 mile and 5-k races, working like crazy, and visiting old friends, I've managed to find a few minutes to snap some shots of my amazing artichokes!



We've picked over thirty different artichokes (most of them small), and they've all been quite tasty!


This is Montana's favorite postition lately. She loves to sit in the sun upside-down!


We had a great day kayaking in Elkhorn Slough today, even though it was overcast and chilly. Here's the view from my kayak:

Ticketmaster is an inefficient monopoly!

I have been trying to buy tickets to see Wicked in San Francisco for the last couple of weeks. I have tried to use their website many times, and I always get to the page where it says, "Select these seats," with the specific dates, rows, and times shown. I select the seats I want, and without fail, I get an error that those seats are not available for purchase. Even though it said on the previous page that those three sets of seats were being held for me for two minutes and thirty seconds with a countdown clock. 

So I finally called them to see if I could have any better luck on the phone. As it turns out, despite a very helpful (and, I believe, competent to the best of the system's ability) representative, it took fifty-six minutes to buy the tickets. Nearly an hour! Inexcusable. 

Here was my request: 

"I would like to buy two tickets to see Wicked on a Saturday matinee in July or August. I want good seats. I am willing to pay $XY per ticket." (I already knew how much the good seats cost, since I had spent so much time trying to buy the tickets on their website.)

"Which date do you prefer?" she asked.

"I don't care--whichever Saturday in July or August has the best seats."

"Ok, please hold." Ten minutes later, as I started to wonder if my phone was still working, she came back on the line. "Thanks for holding. I have just gotten through July, and I'm starting on August now. Just wanted you to know that I hadn't forgotten about you. It will be a few more minutes." 

Fifteen minutes elapse. 

"Ok, I found seats in row L on Aug X or July Z (not a Saturday) for the price you mentioned." (proudly) 

"Great! Are they in the middle orchestra or side orchestra?"

"I'm not sure, let me check." 

Five minutes pass. 

"They are in the side orchestra."

"Oh, I really wanted to be in the middle orchestra section. Which date has the best seats in the middle orchestra section?"

"Please hold. It will be just a moment. Actually, it will take more than a few moments. I have to search each date individually and go into the page as if I'm going to buy tickets for that day."

Twenty minutes later: 

"Here are your options: row V on this date or row Y on that date." 

"Row V sounds great, thanks!"

"Do you want to buy these tickets?" 

"YES!"

I cannot believe that such a simple request took so long to fulfill. I can't believe that this request is so different from what most people would ask for. It seems that their database was not designed with the user in mind. If I could purchase Wicked tickets any other reasonable way, I would!