Back in Our WWH

On Friday afternoon, after decorating the tree and winterizing the house and saying our good byes, the party left Dawson and set sail for Texas. We drove on through Kansas where Jo rolled down the window while we were speeding down the turnpike to take this lovely photo of the evening sky. For the night we stopped in Norman, Oklahoma. By now Evan was feeling fully better but Vivian was down with the same symptoms.  A round of kiddy ibuprofen at night and a hot bath in the morning worked wonders. After breakfast, we drove for six hours non-stop to Austin (would have been five if it wasn't for construction on I35 between West and Salado). The kids did amazingly well.

We drove straight to China Cafe and picked up our dinner and then came to our White Wooden House to eat and unpack and get yelled at by Crazy. It was a very nice Thanksgiving in Dawson. And it is great to be back home. But not for long. Somewhere between Georgetown and Round Rock Jo said she wants to go to a beach soon.

Thanksgiving Lunch

On Thanksgiving morning I woke up and started fiddling with the turkey. I had brined it the evening before and set the pot out on the porch instead of trying to making room in the fridge. Upon returning home from the bar last night I had to bring it in - that night's low was forecast to be 14 degrees and I didn't want the turkey to freeze. So in the morning I washed the turkey, oiled it up and set it in the oil-less fryer. Cooking time based on weight was 150 minutes. I expected a nicely cooked bird at 11:30. Lunch wasn't set to start till 12:30. Enough time.

Turned out that the ambient cold affected cooking time drastically. So at 12:45 I stopped cooking and carried my turkey to the Parish Hall where about 60 people had gathered for lunch. Luckily, Gracie had also cooked a bird and it was actually fully cooked and sufficiently large for everyone to partake. I stuck my tail between my legs and my half-cooked turkey into the oven at the Parish Hall kitchen.

Later, after an enormous lunch, I pulled my now fully cooked turkey out of the oven and put it on the counter. To keep myself occupied, I started carving it up.

Someone walked over a put a bit of turkey in his mouth and nodded and said it was good. And then another. And another. I kept slicing and they kept eating. It took some time, but we didn't have enough for left-overs.

And that's how the first annual Schawang-Burns Thanksgiving lunch went down.

Big Balls

On Friday morning, a few hours before our imminent departure, Uncle Tom and Brian set out to put some lights and the topper on the Christmas tree. With a tractor and a lift.

And then the kids got to decorate the tree with very big balls. A couple of years ago, apparently a strong breeze blew the balls off the tree and then Uncle Tom had to run after his big balls. Vivian asked "Why are big balls so funny?". I don't think she got a straight answer.

Not everything is bigger in Texas.

Blow-Up Doll

When Carol returned to Austin back in September, in passing she mentioned that on days when Nebraska plays, Uncle Tom puts his "blow-up doll" outside and it blows around in the wind. "Some times people stop and take their picture with it" she added.

But Aunt Anna explained that the blow-up doll isn't sleazy after all. Here's Jo posing beside Lil' Red, who seems very wholesome. 

Country Fun

So what did the eight kids do? They fought very little. They played a lot. Indoors and outdoors. Saw some movies on iPads and computers. Drew and sketched. Didn't feel cold when it was 16 degrees outside with a howling 25 mph wind. Pulled each other up and down a grassy hill on a cardboard sheet. Made up silly parades and sillier jokes. Consumed food like they were starving. Told each other scary stories. Hung out with their cousins Mathew and Maverick. Walked "downtown" and to the park. Ran around the house like crazies. And for the most part didn't drive us crazy.

Evan's ear infection finally caught up with him towards the end of the week and he came down with a raging fever. But we had taken an antibiotic from Austin and he was on the path to recovery pretty quickly. And he didn't seem to grumble too much while he was sick - he'd just go upstairs by himself and lay down if he got tired.

It went off far better than I had hoped for. May be they are growing up. May be it's the clean country air.

Hair

This is the first time I spent a week in a house with three African American girls. Jo had fun playing with hairstyles and clips and braids and all kinds of things she can't do with Vivian's straight hair. And the girls put up with it pretty well.

A Patch of Grass

There's this few acres behind the house where the grass grows wild. It's probably too boggy to farm. It starts directly at the end of the property. In the mornings when you look out of the kitchen window you can see a glorious sunrise directly over it. And at evenings (when I look this photo) the place looks just as spectacular in the setting sun. I know. It's just a patch of grass that looks like an Andrew Wyeth painting.

On our last day in Dawson, while the grown-ups packed and cleaned and winterized the house ("Hey, do shampoo bottles explode when they freeze?"), Vivian, Evan and Grace entered it and were soon swallowed up by the tall grass. After a while I could hear them on the other side and they made it back by using the water tower for navigation.

Tamale

On our first night in Dawson, the kids settled down for the night in blankets and sleeping bags. I walked over to Uncle Tom's with a 18 year old Laphroaig. He found an unopened Maker's Mark in his cabinet and we got down to watching some football and making a dent in the spirits. Much later when I dodged traffic and stumbled across 10th street and came back home, the house was like an oven. Till I wandered upstairs and opened the bedroom door and then it was like a grill. I wandered back downstairs and turned off as many space heaters as I could and made myself comfortable on the couch. The house was filled with the aroma of slow cooked ancho peppers and pork and garlic. Tamales tomorrow.

Next morning, while the kids and the dogs played outside, several people arrived. Greta directed the group and Uncle Tom and Quinn gleefully kneaded the four pounds of lard into the ten pounds of masa and then we received instructions on how to trowel the masa onto the corn husks.

The Nebraska crew seem to take to tamale making like Punjabis to parathas. In no time, sixteen to seventeen dozen pork filled tamales were steaming away. Mine were spiked with thinly sliced habanero - mmm! Delicioso.

I sense the beginnings of a tradition.

Driving North

On Friday before Thanksgiving, at about 6pm we drove off north on I35. Six hours later we stopped for the night in Edmund, Oklahoma, in the shadow of that giant Christian cross. It rained, but not very heavily, most of the way. We had tried stopping in Norman, south of Oklahoma City, but it turned out that the Sooners had a Saturday morning game and every hotel was full. Next morning we we back on I35 and took it all the way to Topeka. From there we got on US Route 75 northwards till we exited to hang out with Karen Ebel and her two boys who are as militant as Evan. The children played violently. I was pleasantly surprised that no one was injured. Later that afternoon we continued on Route 75 past the Potawatomi and Kickapoo reservations and their small-town casinos and into Nebraska at the well-shot-at "...the good life..." sign. Ten miles later we had arrived in Dawson. Our new home base in Nebraska.

Remember back in March when Jo and Vivian had driven off to Nebraska? Of course not - I hardly do. Anyway, during that trip, Jo and Nicolle had procured a house, next to Uncle Tom's. In Dawson. This sumer, while we were sitting atop soon to erupt volcanoes in Iceland, Michelle and her crew toiled and remodeled large parts of the house and fixed up one bathroom. Carol stayed on after summer and returned back to Austin at the end of September complaining that the heating didn't work. So we decided to go up there for a week during Thanksgiving. An unheated house with one working bathroom and eight kids and six adults and four dogs.

When we we arrived at the house on the dreary Saturday afternoon, the inside of the house was like a fridge. Till I opened the door leading upstairs, which was like the inside of a freezer. So we opened all the doors to let in the 50 degree warm air from outside. Meanwhile Vivian and Evan played in the yard and threw leaves up in the air and at each other. It's going to be a long fucking week. But I like that patch of overgrown uncultivated grass behind the house.

Crazy

At bed time Crazy loves to cuddle up with Vivian. Unless Evan screams to have her evicted. "I don't want her here" he says very definitely. And then Crazy goes to bed with us and sleeps on top of my feet. What a sweet loving cat. Or may be Evan is onto something.

Last week I was out in the front yard. Crazy made that weird sound cats make when they have a prey in their mouth and they want to offer it to you. She had a large poor struggling bird. I tried to get her to let go. The bird fluttered out of her mouth. Crazy watched it for a second. Then she pounced on it and swung it around in the air. Five feet away I clearly heard the poor bird's neck snap. I came back out 20 minutes later. Crazy was sitting and licking her lips. There were two neatly severed wings. Everything else was gone. Animals.

Catching Up

I've been distracted. So lets catch up. Here's a photo all the way back from a month ago - a few days before Halloween. I think I was at a late meeting that evening. Jo and the kids carved the pumpkins. Here they are posing their scariest best. A few days after Halloween we had to throw the pumpkins out. They had collapsed in a gooey bug infested mess. Shortest lived pumpkins in my memory. Global warming, y'all.

A few days later we dressed up and went to the Silk Road Gala for Asian Family Support Services of Austin (formerly known as Saheli) - what a mouthful. But a lovely moving experience. Jo was a part of the team that put it together. They tried several new things including a live auctioneer. Great job all around. As a result we are now the proud owners of a Jesus Moroles piece. When Vivian and Evan saw it the next morning they wanted to know why it qualified as a sculpture.

Vivian and Evan had their parent-teacher conference the day before the Gala. It went off well. Vivian, you need to improve both your Spanish and English reading. But apparently you are excelling in math and at being able to connect the dots and discover patterns and relationships. Evan - you are just charming anyone who comes with ten feet of you at school so it's hopeless to get any sort of objective criticism about you. We'll have to wait till your charm wears off. Which it will. Here's a sample of Vivian's math work that her teacher showed off to visiting parents at Singapore Math Night a week later (math nerds!). "Super Bueno".

Then Evan woke up one morning complaining of a ear ache. By the time I picked him up early from school to visit Dr. Griggs, he had forgotten which ear hurt. He was more interested in extracting a lollipop from the good doctor. I told him that only happened when he got a shot and as he wasn't getting a shot he wasn't going to get a lollipop. Wrong. He had a couple of nurses giggling at his stories and they offered him one.

So Evan's ear stopped hurting. He and Vivian played with Ava while Jo and I packed on Friday afternoon. And we headed out of town on that cold and drizzling evening in a car filled to the brim.

Consider yourself all caught up.

A Long Weekend

Everything was schedule to happen on the weekend of November 15th and 16th. So we started Saturday morning by taking the kids for a walk around Town Lake. It was cold. Vivian was grouchy. We only made it as far as the boat dock and fed the swans.

A bit later that morning we stopped at Whole Earth and Vivian picked out a pretty stick horse for Cerie's birthday gift and Evan bought a set of dueling swords for Olie's. "Oliver needs weapons", he declared.

That afternoon Jo and Vivian headed over across the street for Cerie's party and I took Evan in the rain northwards to Mount Playmore for Olie's party. The place was loud and full and crazy and wild. We stayed for an hour while Evan ran around on the hamster warren cage playscape thingie with Olie and Nolan and Abigail and when he finished he fell asleep in my arms. Till I dropped him off at the jumpy castle at Cerie's party where he opened his eyes and started jumping - no questions asked.

That evening Alexus sat the exhausted kids while the exhausted parents got dressed up and went to Saheli's annual Silk Road Gala. The event got off to a dramatic start when the lion dancers jumped into the Bullock Center (you can see the smaller kids resting in the photo above - they take turns and change dancers mid-step). Austin Police Chief Acevedo was the MC. Linda mentioned that one in three Asian women are victims of domestic violence. I could not help wondering how that grim statistic played out with people I knew. What happens behind closed doors? And what about the perpetrators? Was every third or fourth or even tenth guy sitting in that polite gathering a perp?

Next morning we met Jen and Travis at Hillside Farmacy for Jen's birthday breakfast. The wait was long. As you can see the kids had trouble staying awake. That afternoon there was a Magellan PP4 gathering at Crenshaw's gym and siblings were allowed and Vivian and Evan had loads of fun.

That evening, tierd and hungry, we stopped for a quick bite at the Waterloo Ice House on Burnet. I ordered wings. When Jo asked why I wasn't eating the celery, I said that it looked like someone had rubbed them on their ass first. Evan jumped in with "What is an ass, daddy?"

Before bed time, Jo read them from Nancy Drew and after that everyone fell into a deep slumber. Thankfully the weekend is over.

Meetings

Conversation with Evan on the way back home from China Cafe tonight.

Evan, out of the blue: "We used to be rich but now I think we aren't rich"
Me: "Why do you say that?"
Evan: "Because I think we used to be rich and then I took out my money and gave it to Ava for her birthday. Are we rich?"

He's contribution to Ava's birthday gift bag was a penny from his desk.

Jo: "Evan - what do you think rich means?"
Evan: "I think it's having a lot of money"
Me: "What do you do with money?"
Evan: "Buy things"
Me: "And in other ways. How do we pay for school?"
Evan: "You and Mommy go for meetings"
Me: "What do your teachers get for teaching at school?"
Evan: "They go to meeting to learn to be better teachers"
Me: "But what do they get to take home to buy things they need?"
Evan: "They get to take their books from their meetings"

So I get into this discussion about earning money and spending money and using money for things like school and cars and vacations and groceries. And that meetings have nothing to do with it. By then we get home. As the car pulls into the driveway, Evan cuts me short.

Evan: "I didn't ask if teachers are rich. Or if other people are rich."
And then added with emphasis "I asked if we are rich?"
Me, resigning to answer him directly: "Yes"

Years ago my mother had reminded me that when I was Evan's age I asked our nanny/cook if we were rich. Dada, the old man, in his wisdom had nodded sagely and replied "Haa baba. Dhani hai."

The car stopped. I open my door to get out. Vivian, who had been quiet the whole time said "Evan, we are not rich, But we have enough to get by."

I should have let Vivian handle it.

Happy Birthday Ava

Cousin Ava turned 8. Unbelievable. When she was a baby we'd joke that she looked like a grouchy old lady sitting in the back of the church.

No fears - Ava has a radiant smile now. Happy birthday and hope you light up the world with your smile.

Before we left Austin to go join the cousins in New Braunfels, the kids made a gift bag for Ava from some of their own favorite things. Then Jo suggested we go to Whole Earth to look for a birthday gift from us. She said "Ava doesn't like the usual girlie things". And Vivian piped up from the back seat "I know. I really had to look hard to find something". Apparently she hadn't been able to just dive into her jewelry box for something cute.

After the celebrations, Vivian and Grace put up a little fashion show. They got Kai to emcee it. And Evan provided the entertainment.  

Sweet Turd

Evan keeps me guessing.

Yesterday Jo met his school librarian who always stops and chats with Evan. She said that he was a joy to have at the library. His teacher seems to think pretty highly of the lad. And he flirts outrageously with the young lady at the front desk.

Then this is him laying down on the kitchen floor this morning before school because Vivian found an energy bar (a marketing term for a brownie covered in chocolate) in her backpack after he had already eaten his.

So I thought he's doing that charm thing at school like he did in his first year at Grace Garden when they called him Sweet Evan there while we called him turd at home.

When I got home late in the evening yesterday he came running up and gave me this card. It's the first time I've seen him write something other than his own name. Vivian helped him spell it but he wrote it by himself. And that's a picture of "a grandpa snail with a walking stick". So he's talking smack because we have this race coming up when he and Vivian and I will settle which of us is the fastest and which one is the grandpa snail. But it's drawn on a heart and he added a sticker of a little red plush heart to the front. He keeps me guessing.

Baby

One morning I got back from working out and Jo was softly humming a tune. Zenia was on her shoulder. Passed out with her mouth open like a tiny Morning Glory.

Karen had stepped out for something. When she came back, she tried to politely take Zenia from Jo. A very subtle but definite tussle ensued. Jo eventually relinquished her hold on Zenia and forked her over to Karen. Vivian and Evan - read this years from now and know how close you got to another sibling. I strongly believe if I were a few decades younger, Jo would be talking me into Baby Number Three. 

Halloween

Back in the day, in the Before Kids era, Robbe and I had wild Halloween parties. Naked people in the hot tub. Some ending up lucky and others engaged. These days, on Halloween evening, the kids get dressed, we cross the street for a very nice early dinner at the Brumley's where Amy paints their faces, and then we take the next two hours to walk down three blocks of Rosedale, cross over to Ramsey, and trudge back home.  I carry a bottle of wine. We sip as the kids tear up and down front yards with hundreds of other ghouls and goblins (and this year, Cleopatras) and just about when they start to get tired and the sacks of candy get too heavy, we get back home.

Which is what we did this year. Evan dressed as a very serious vampire. No laughing or horsing around - vampires just don't do that. Vivian was a pirate. Thanks to a last minute shopping trip, she wore a pirate costume and didn't have to go as a "hooker pirate" in her "black cocktail dress". Ava was a wholesome cowgirl. Eleanor was a delightful gypsy. Jo went as Minnie Mouse.

There were four new people in our group. Zenia, who fell asleep right after dinner, was a hotdog. Jen came as Jen. Travis was a flower (a Hawaiian Plumeria hair clip attached to his beard). And Darwin was a bumble bee. Yes, really. An extraordinarily cute bumble bee.

Travis bobbed for apples and we learned the first law of beards. A wet beard remains wet till it dries, no matter what you do. We lost track of Evan and Ava once but they were soon re-discovered. And plans were made for next year. We are going to own the Wizard of Oz. I can't remember who gets to be whom. Perhaps Vivian and Ava could be Dorothy, unless Jen throws a fit. The littler ones will be munchkins. Jo could be the wicked witch. Travis gets to be the scaredy lion, Tim the Tin Man. Darwin is excited to be Toto instead of a frigging bumble bee.

I think I got the scare crow, though after Jen sent me this cartoon, I could lay reasonable claim to the Tin Man.

Evan got into a huge sugar rush from eating large quantities of candy. Vivian threw up - either too much or bad candy. The kids shared admirably well with Jo and me and made a pile of Tootsie Rolls for Grandma and willingly handed out their candy to perfect strangers (late trick-or-treaters who knocked after we were out of candy) and in a couple of days, Jo packed up the rest and dropped it off at Magellan to be sent to our troops for Christmas. Except for the empty wrappers I found in her car later.

F1

JB invited me to F1 at the very last moment, and on a beautiful Sunday morning I dropped the kids off at the Shahs and went off to the races.

I could tell Evan was going to be difficult - he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed and there was nothing to be done about it. Now, over at the Shahs, as long as Vivian eats a bit of salad, these kids know that they can get away with murder. Later I was surprised to hear that Evan got sent to time-out once. Which is amazing because  a) the Shahs are ultra nice to the kids, and b) Evan shaped up after just one time-out.

F1 was fun. Always nice to see the over-the-top ostentatious display of wealth and status. And how much better the Mercedes team was. And COTA must have mistook F1 for Nascar when they invited Kid Rock for a concert - which lead to hilarious snob / redneck identity crises for onlookers. But I digress. That week, starting with diner with Ash, beer with the Austin Philosophy Club, Halloween, and a late night at the Tech Ranch, I hadn't seen Jo and the kids much. When I got home from F1 smelling faintly of refreshments, they circled the wagons and I was out. Even Crazy, my loyal cat, stood there and glared while they all sat on top of each other and listened to Jo reading Nancy Drew and Ramona and Beezus.  

 Next year maybe I'll take the whole fam to F1. In cowboy hats and Gucci boots.

Crickets

The Valby-Delasandros were over for dinner the other evening. It was still dripping outside and the the temperatures definitely said Fall. And Tim walked in holding an oversized cupcake in front of him - little Zenia fast asleep on a plump cushion. He plopped the cushion and Zenia down on the yak bench. Karen put her head down next to Zenia's for a second. And bam - a photo op for - dare I say - mother-daughter yak porn.

So. Changing topics, we have started enjoying the bounty of local farm produce from a CSA delivery at Vivian's school again. This is what I got this week. And bison meat and pork chops.

For dinner Jo had slow-cooked pork. I fixed the white eggplants - oven grilled (blackened, some would say) with tomatoes and onions. Sliced watermelon radishes served straight, which provided for interesting conversation. And, for salad, a bag of farm fresh mixed greens carefully washed and then dried in the salad spinner, tossed with apples and almonds in a roasted garlic dressing.

Jo finished dinner and then with muted excitement pointed at something on her plate. At first Karen and I both thought she had somehow eaten an egg and which would mean reconvening dinner at the emergency room. Instead, it turned out to be a nice big definitely dead cricket. I guess I should have picked through the greens more carefully. Organic produce. Rich in proteins.

The children ate at the counter and rushed off to the TV room. Vivian asked if they could continue the movie from last night. Jo said "No". So Vivian filled Ava in gleefully. "There are these twin sisters who lose a bet and have to jump into a lake naked. Fully naked". What the heck are they watching...?