threadwalker

Friday night the kids and I explored the foreign land of "The Mall". They needed coats. I know, I know - other parents warned me that coats mysteriously disappear and you have to replace them, but I was not mentally prepared to replace Super N's coat, which disappeared a few weeks ago. I've been making him check lost and found everyday and finally caved in when we had ice on the ground on Friday morning. Fortunately everything is on sale AND we found something for each kid. In fact, in both cases we got the very last coat in his and her respective size at more than 50% off. That's "all win" in my book.

Saturday was "Mommy has spontaneously planned an adventure and thereby probably sabotaged putting away a ton Christmas Decorations" day. Yay. I even lured F from the computer and the work he brought home.

I casually mentioned the trip to a friend and we lucked into some co-adventurers (co-conspirators?), as well. We rendesvoused with

ermine_rat, his wife (Hawk Lady) and their son (Tornado Lad), at Concord BART around 9:30 am, racing up the elevator and leaping into the train in the nick of time. (It wouldn't be public transit if you weren't racing for your ride, right?) The premise of the trip was to go to the Asian Art Museum to see the Lost Treasures of Kabul, which is only a few blocks from the BART station.

The Kabul exhibit was fascinating, but (IMO) kind of small. It lacked the "wow" of a big exhibit. Even for that, I really liked the displays of the tomb discoveries with the gold do-dads laid out as they were found and the accompanying experts projection of how the do-dads would have been arranged on the clothing. My favorite pieces from the Kabul exhibit were the glass fish-shaped flasks and the curious metal fish-dish that had moving parts so it looked like the fish were swimming when water was in it. The fish-dish was a "curiosity" and I like the idea that they made stuff for the sake of its own oddity.

Miss E was with me for the Museum part and I was able to interest her in what we were looking at, which took me by surprise. We'd look at a display of decorated pottery and I'd ask her to find animals and name them, etc, which gave me time to read the placards and view the pieces. Pretty quickly she was saying, "Mommy, give me more questions," which amused the elderly museum goers who were next to us. Her favorite part was the gold crown and the animal art in the Kabul exhibit. Super N liked the Jade Room best, which is part of the standing collection. I think Tornado Lad liked the running around in the Samsung room, which looks like an empty ball room with vaulted ceiling and a few couches in the middle (the Asian Art Museum is the former SF Library building).

The ball room was large enough for them to run laps, chase each other, have a few races, and slide across the slick marble floor. All this was done without disturbing anyone since we were the only ones in there. I think Tornado Lad, Super N and Miss E formed the "Companions of the Order of Taunt, Tease and Tackle". You could frequently hear, "nah-nah, you can't catch me," accompanied by butt slapping and resulting in a doggy pile of squirming kids a few minutes later.

While walking from the Museum to lunch we got to see a political display in front of the Civic Center, with banner and bull horns, which was mildly interesting since we don't get any of that at the Concord Civic Center (which I live 4 blocks from).

For lunch we hit the kids' favorite lunch spot, Burger King, and took over the upstairs, where the Companions of TTT did more racing, tackling, etc.

I like it when a trip takes a new direction, so when we stepped out of BK I assumed we were heading home. But F said, "What should we do next?" I actually squeed and the other adults all smiled, looked around and started listing out the "easy to get to stuff". Yay! Onwards!

We took the trolley down to Pier 39 and explored there. The trolley was a first for me. I went to school in SF and took lots of field trips to Museums and the Pier, etc, but never rode a trolley before.

At the Pier I armed myself with coffee, F armed the group with sanitizing wipes (the kids get into everything) and we bopped in and out of shops. At Krazy Kaps F made me try on several silly hats for his own amusement, inspiring Super N to get into the act, so there was lots of silly to go around. Coming out of there we came across one of the pier performers. He was just starting when we got there, juggling flame and moving to sharp blades.

I thought the juggler was pretty funny, cracking jokes at his own expense. I'm not sure how these people make these decisions, but he sucked both of my kids into his show. Evie, who he called up first, had that reluctant-yet-willing victim look, sort of excited and trying to bite her smile at the same time. She was asked to choose between receiving a balloon animal and a dollar bill; she choose the balloon animal and the juggler laughed and said that in over 10 years, she's the first kid to choose the balloon animal, so he gave her both, making a balloon poodle. She was very stoked and the poodle is next to her bed where she's proud to tell me it still has air and still looks poodle-y.

Super N was eager to get into the act and was supposedly up there to reveal the trick to the audience and yell "fraud" whenever it was appropriate. He was very enthusiastic! This was the stunt of the bottle that disappears in the bag. The juggler was setting Super N up, making it easy for Super N to "reveal" the that the bottle had not really vanished from the bag - that the juggler was cleverly holding it so we couldn't see it. But as part of his finale the juggler crumpled up the bag with the bottle in it, making the bottle "vanish" as the bag ended up in a tiny wad. Super N's response was hysterical, his jaw hit the ground and he told me later it was real magic. It was cool how the show swept both kids away.

The kids got to see the Sea Lions lounging beside the Pier. Unfortunately, Miss E thought she was going to get to see real lions (like "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!") and that they'd be swimming and lounging uncaged. She told me she was very disappointed and that those fat black blobs on the rafts were not really lions. Ah, the expectations of kids.

ermine_rat lead us to the Boudin Sour Dough factory where we saw giant crab shaped loaves of bread and we loittered there almost long enough for me to lose control and bury my face in a loaf of sour dough. Nom nom nom. I actually insisted that we either move on or cave into my cravings. Hawk Lady was sympathetic and we meandered.

We wandered to Pier 41, past the yummy smells of food stalls, and visited the Musee Mechanique. It was filled with the mechanical fortune tellers, etc, from the Playland By the Sea. I had a pocket full of quarters and had fun watching the moving dioramas. Miss E's first choice was "An English Execution". We watched a little door open and behind it the figurine, which had a bag over his head, a noose around his neck, and was standing on a trap door, received last rites. At the finale, the trap door opened and he dangled from the rope. Miss E didn't seem impressed but I thought it was kind of ghoulish. We spent a lot of time watching the miniature carnivalm, which was clever and beautiful. I think we were all charmed. The boys and Miss E went on the sub which is moored there. I'm not good in confined spaces, so Hawk Lady and I puttered about and found the bathroom. (which was grosser than any bathroom I saw in Europe or at a rock concert, so we pulled out before using it.)

It was just past 5pm and we dropped into the Rain Forest Cafe for dinner. I've eaten at the one in Las Vegas and the one near Disneyland, but the one near Pier 41 is the coolest one I've ever eaten at. There are animatronics everywhere, periodic lightining/thunder storms, etc. There was a huge snake coiled in the branches directly over our table, moving his head back and forth, waving his tail and testing the air with his tongue. Tornado Lad took one look and dove for cover under our table. It took a while to convince him to come out; he wouldn't believe that it wouldn't get him. Later we had to get the kids to stop trying to climb the decorative trees. It was such a beautiful and playful setting, I loved it. Dinner was yummy, of course, and we all treated ourselves to boozy drinks in blinky-flashy cups. Since no one was driving, it was nice that no one had to make a choice based on who was holding the keys.

We trooped back to the the trolley and BART from there. The kids were wiped out and Miss E and Tornado Lad zonked out on BART. I thought

ermine_rat was also going to fall asleep on us, but he held on.

We got home after 9pm, pooped and exhausted from a long day. Miss E said her feet were hurting a lot, so I filled the tub with a few inches of water, threw in bath salts and got out my frou-frou foot rubs. Then I dimmed the lights, light some candles and we shared a girlie foot bath. Super N's equivalent was taking a shower and then climbing into bed to watch Power Rangers. F was out like a light by the time I got the kids tucked in. Saturday was awesomeness.

Sunday dawned bright and I whirl-winded through the house, pulling down Christmas decor and cleaning like a woman on crack. Between 9am and 12, I made 2 shuttle trips to church, picked up a b-day cake at the store (where I did some grocery shopping), swung by Starbucks for a mocha, and filled 5 trunks full of Christmas falderol, including all the tree ornaments, nut crackers, decorative village, yards of garland, creches, banners, wreathes, etc. Almost every surface of the house had something and I got almost all of it put away. Single-Handed. I wrestled the tree outside (single-handed), got the kids to pick up their stuff, did 2 loads of laundry, moved all the x-mas boxes into storage and vacuumed. Woot! A 10-minute shower and we were out the door racing to The Jungle.

We went to The Jungle for Super N's b-day party where he was joined by about a dozen kids and as many parents. (The Jungle is a kid-sized hamster run). The big kids really just hung out in the arcade the whole time. Pizza and drinks were had and then we retreated to my place for cake and gifts. The mob whittled down and the kids had sword fights and tag on the front lawn. At one point I was "base" and they were all racing after me to try and be "safe" from whomever was "it". Oh yeah... I love being chased by 2nd graders and still being faster. I wore them down after cake and ice cream and then sent them home.

I had Super N get out some paper and "journal" his weekend. Miss E got her diary out and I dated the pages while she drew pictures of all the stuff she did. The journaling thing is part of Nicholas's Monday homework anyway, so I think we'll just start on Sundays so that it will be fun for all of us. Then we all snuggled on the sofa, watching "24" (which I'd never seen before) and I squeezed in some embroidery while Miss E tucked in next to me.

Brief Embroidery update: I've worked another 8 hrs into my silk/gold piece in the last week. It creeps closer to completion. Very ... slowly...