Labor Day Weekend Part 1

Happily we all have a three day weekend so Saeed and I have had the pleasure of some youthful company. As you've seen from Shirin and Gabriel's blog Cyrus loves to suck on his hands. Here, two fingers do the job quite nicely!

We played the same game as last visit and Cyrus woke up halfway through and requested some entertainment.

His movements are quite a bit more controlled. He can reach out and grab an object with much more accuracy than before.

Obi stole one of Saeed's gold tokens...

...and showed that he too could grasp something in his hand.

Cyrus could handle himself much better in the walker than last time. I have a video of this uploading as I type.

If you can't read his shirt it says, "I get my good looks from my baba."

And here is Baba-joon rocking a very sleepy baby.

Typically I like photos better, but I'm finding that the cute noises Cyrus is now making increases my use of the video setting on my camera! Also, Cyrus' Khaleh Anahita has requested as many videos as possible so she can see her nephew in action. As the videos complete uploading I will add them to this post.

Here is Cyrus showing his mastery of the musical gadget on his walker. That's Obi you see periodically.


Cyrus is a little scooter bug:



He's also a squealer!:



Just havin' a good time!


And just in case you didn't have enough happy squealing:

Love Dem 'Lil Footsies

I love kitties' footsies. Frosty Paws' footsies are especially fantastic.

Even he knows how special they are;
he rests them on their own special pillow.

My God, how big is he? He can't even fit on the chair without his head hanging over the edge. At least his footsies are safe.

This Accent Warms My Heart

When we bought our first house in RH we also gained the best neighbors we'll ever have. We have fond memories of Hoa running up to us in the driveway to welcome us and ask if had children. Though she was disappointed by our answer ("no") we made her happy about nine months later. Over the next 13 years Lanie & Amy and Shirin & Anahita lived like sisters, playing together, eating together, sleeping over, and holding fake weddings in our driveway. As refugees from Viet Nam, Van and Hoa worked hard to raise their family and our relationship with them was very warm and loving. We often say that our years living next door to the Vu's were the best years of our lives (of course those were also the years of Ellen & Larry, but that's another story!) Our lives were changed by these wonderful people.

Why do I go down memory lane? Because I bumped into a new young comedienne named Anjelah Johnson (with Mexican and Native American roots) who often uses ethnicity as the source of her comedy. In the second half of this routine she does a bit about Vietnamese nail salon beauticians. What she says isn't exactly PC, but she does the accent very well and I felt my heart sore when I heard it. Just hearing the Vietnamese accent makes me happy! Enjoy.

Must Be A Female Lizard

We have a lot of lizards around; I've written about them before. I'm not sure why some people are afraid of them (because they look like snakes with legs?) because I think they are SO cute. Usually they are pretty wary and run off but sometimes they don't mind just looking right back at you. This picture shows the beautiful dusky green color and the pretty stripe running down its back. Their ability to change colors, though, is totally fascinating.

I have a coworker that comes to work every day with her hair in a different style or perhaps even a different color. This desire to change her appearance on a daily basis is surely not for survival, unless she is trying to keep her marriage alive by appearing to be a different woman each day (related to the Coolidge effect.) I think of her every time I see one of our lizards changing color. I was on the deck admiring a green lizard when it decided to take off. Look at the bird feeder.

See how it has changed to brown to blend with the bird feeder?

Must be a female.

There's A Feline Among Us

Anyone who's walked in our neighborhood has probably met and been accosted by this little fellow.

With no hesitation or caution he makes a beeline for the potential love session.

The obligatory sniff...

...ahhhh...

After rolling around in the driveway he came over and gave me a love-bite on my leg. I know these love nibbles because Teddie and Lupe do it too. It hurts so good!

Love session over, time to clean.

Beautiful.

There's A Fungus Among Us

Yes, mushrooms. I was out walking in my neighborhood when I came upon a patch of mushrooms. Although the one on the right is bigger I chose the design on the smaller one for Wednesday's picture.

Here's the full image of Wednesday's mushroom.
And here is the buddy mushroom.

Here are the same two mushrooms two days later. Look how much they've grown in just 48 hours. In addition they've become less spherical and flattened out quite a bit.

Some other 'shrooms.

What a beautiful design.

I really liked Gabriel's description of the mushroom: my beloved.
I also think he needs to give his father-in-law a lesson or two.
:-)

Guess What It Is -

I think it's probably pretty obvious... but maybe not?

Our Own Olympic Finals

If you read Shirin and Gabriel's blog then you know we've been having an eight-week competition of our own. For Christmas Anahita gave me a game called "The Fitness Challenge" which we adjusted to two teams of two people each: Saeed and I against the younger team of Shirin and Gabriel. The prize? The losers take the winners out to dinner!

The game board provided spaces for each team's stars. Saeed and I are the orange stars. The fourth star you earn in a week is worth three points; this is to motivate you to work out at least four times a week.

The first week I had strep throat, so Shirin and Gabriel graciously threw away their first week of exercise and restarted with the next week. They'll be sorry they did because the results are in:

Saeed and Ingrid: 71

Gabriel and Shirin: 58

Now Saeed and I get to decide which restaurant we're going to .... hmmm.... surely somewhere expensive! I think we need a rematch, but I worry that these youngsters are too busy. Of course the point is to encourage fitness but there are just so many things you can cram into one day. Shirin kept her team going alone there at the end.

Hey Tita - my next Christmas present should be a game called, "Pushing Your Plate Away Challenge"!

Rediscovering Cherry Park

If I remember correctly Cherry Park didn't even exist when we first moved here. Perhaps it was finished shortly after we arrived because I remember taking the girls there as toddlers. It was fairly barren with only newly planted trees and bushes. In the summer it was quite hot because the trees were too small to provide shade. Over twenty five years have passed and it has turned into a very nice park.

Last week when it was 100 degrees in the shade at noon, we decided to have a genuinely southern summer experience and take a picnic lunch to Cherry Park. For us a picnic lunch often means a veggieburger sub from Substation II. The sign may look bad but the sandwiches there are oh so yummy.

Good eatin' awaits us inside that bag.

We chose a nice picnic table in the shade and dove in.

For some reason the fork in Saeed's pocket made me laugh.

For Martha: a picture of her sister.
(This time Saeed, not the fork, was making me laugh.)

We checked out the playground area where I plan to
spend some time with my grandchildren.

Hmmm... fortunately Cyrus is a big boy. Hopefully he can pass for a two-year old next year and we can take him here even if he's not.

Not far from the playground stands Casey At The Bat. Why this statue? Cherry Park has many baseball diamonds for local and national games.

It's a really beautiful statue. For those of you who don't know, Casey is a fictional character in a poem by Ernest Thayer.

This week we went to Cherry Park again but because the weather was so cool. I was actually cold in my shorts and T-shirt. Walking around warmed me up enough to be comfortable.

The bike path is the sidewalk on the left; the walkers' is on the right. Unfortunately the bike path isn't enough of a route to really get a good ride, but the surroundings are beautiful.

This flower attracted my attention; it looked very exotic and tropical.

Another beautiful flowering plant along our path.

No, this is not a tombstone. Throughout the park are labels identifying the trees. Crape Myrtles are beautiful flowering trees that bloom for about two months in the summer. They come in several colors, primarily white, light pink and dark pink.

At this time, mid-August, they are throwing down their flowers.

How surreal - pink snow.

Cherry Park has many very nice baseball diamonds and soccer fields. The National Women's Softball Championships have been here the last three years in a row. Notice the moon in the sky.

Are thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
~Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

With the moon out and the golden sun sinking...
it was time to go home.