So usually I save the "cute kid" stories for the hypermuffin blog, the better to segment my audience. But this is really more of a "cute Andrew" story, so you get it, instead.

Tonight the girls and I were playing up in the attic. We walked into the far "bedroom" and saw a large black spider on the floor.

I calmly wended my way downstairs and asked Andrew if he was well enough now to resume his designated spider squishing capacity. Because I am nothing if not a supportive wife. ;-)

He agreed and disposed of it, but the hypermuffin burst into tears over the trauma of it all.

Later that evening she mentioned the spider again. It had made a deep impression on her.

"Is Daddy your hero?" I asked her.

"Nooooo!" she shouted gleefully. "Daddy is not hero! Daddy is a man!!"

At which point Andrew put on his best laconic cowboy voice and said, "Nothin' heroic about it, ma'am. Just doin' what a man has to do."

Here's my brother singing on the Japanese national TV show "Nodo Jiman" (I blogged about it a bit here):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZPYAqPtAK8

He's the tall one.

My "little" brother (actually, 6'4") has been teaching English in Japan with the JET Programme for a little while now. He's living and working in the city of Saku, which is famous (in Japan) for being the spot farthest from the sea.

A month or two ago, he and three other teachers auditioned for, and were taped for, a Japanese show called "Nodo Jiman" (のど自慢, literally: Beautiful Throat). It's a show that started in 1946, anticipating the "American Idol"-style reality performance shows by quite a bit. Basically, people and groups sing on air and are judged.

My brother writes that "his" episode is going to air this Sunday the 16th. He adds, "so I will be seen all over the country! Only for a bare minute, of course... Still, I'll be "famous in Japan", so to speak."

Pictures and captions

So, did his group win? I hear you clamor to know. You could always tune in to Japanese TV this Sunday and find out! ;-)

Andrew's uncle Phil, Phil's daughter Meredith, and her two children are all up visiting Seattle. This morning they came by our house for "the tour" and photos on the couch (which can be seen here). Then we all headed down to Mae's Phinney Ridge Cafe, directly south of us, for a filling and delicious breakfast (thanks to autumnbottom for the tip!). We were served by Mae herself, and I believe that Meredith even got some pictures of her before they left (I was outside with a fussing baby). 

To burn off the kids' energy, we walked north a few blocks to a small, fenced-in playground attached to the Phinney Neighborhood Association. hypermuffin ran around like crazy and went up and down the slides so quickly the rest of us could barely keep track of her, while Meredith's kids practiced cartwheels and I attempted to remember the rules to hopscotch. (It's been awhile, OK?)

We went our separate ways before my girls melted down completely. The "word on the street" is that the four guests to our fair city then went on to visit Woodland Park Zoo, and then headed downtown to the REI flagship store, home of one of the world's largest indoor rock climbing facilities. Tomorrow night they'll be staying at Edward and Charlotte's palatial compound, Roe Landing, near Silverdale.

Tonight was spent with Andrew, who took the night off work, and his brother Tom, up visiting from California. We took turns making fried potatoes -- just thinly sliced Yukon Gold potatoes, in hot vegetable oil until golden and crispy, and then salt on top. They are super simple, terribly bad for you, and HEAVEN, and we ate them as fast as they came off the skillet.

Tom searched through the CIA World Factbook for weird-sounding countries and territories, and we discussed what we knew about places like Turkmenistan (too bad that wacky President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov died last year!!!), Kiribati, Bouvet Island, and suchlike places. Hey, when I throw a party, it gets wild.

After we devoured the potatoes, I made pork chops and there was applesauce and hot mulled cider and pumpkin pie. (Yes, pie from the store; I have two small children at the moment...)

Then it was time for FIRE. We have owned this house almost four years, and never made a fire, and that is just silly. My reasons for foregoing fire were (1) I was pretty sure making one involved either opening or closing a "flue," which could be either rusted shut or caked with bat guano and would definitely be a mystery to me, raised without a fireplace; (2) I was worried about the hypermuffin charging into it.

I figured out the "flue" pretty easily -- looks like it had been open all this time; oops! (The fireplace has glass bifold doors, so there hasn't been a draft that we could feel.) The firelog was a bit beyond me,  though.

(Catherine, kneeling in front of the fireplace, reading from the firelog wrapper): "Um, let's see here... 'Open fireplace damper fully...' That must be the flue. Check. 'Loosen wrapper around firelog to create air space. Do not open wrapper.'"

(looks into fireplace, where the fully naked firelog is sitting insouciantly staring back at her) "CrrrRRRRRrrrrap!"

Whereupon Andrew and Tom laughed at me heartily.

(Side note: The  firelog packaging touts how environmentally friendly it is, in terms of emitting 75% less carbon, or 75% less creosote, or something. What it fails to mention is that it produces 75% less HEAT. I want a fire to be HOT, darnit. I was sitting right next to this thing and it wasn't even warm. What kind of a dinky fire is this, anyway? I am regretting buying the bulk package of these things; they seem pretty, but purely decorative.)

Anyway, we enjoyed an episode of "Pushing Daisies," and then watched a few episodes of Little Kuriboh's "Yu-gi-oh Abridged" series, making  me laugh so hard my face hurts, even though I've seen them all at least a few times.

Andrew and Tom are up talking... but I'm on my way to bed. Ahhhhhh, sweet bed.

Andrew's little brother Tom -- and I use the word "little" loosely, because he is actually 6'3" -- is visiting us for a few days. Any suggestions for fun things he can do to amuse himself while he's here? 

I was going through the attic the other day and came across a big expandable folder of letters from my grandmother, Marjorie Anderson, to my mother Joan, from the years 1979 - 1984.

My grandparents lived out on the Olympic Peninsula, in the Hoh River valley. When he was a young man my grandfather was a logger; check out this picture of him and a giant spruce tree. He also hunted cougar for bounty every so often. He and my grandmother had a smallish herd of cattle and a couple of huge gardens, and lived waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere. And then the bridge washed out and didn't get rebuilt, and it took even longer to drive around the long way, so they were even farther out in the middle of nowhere.

So there they were, stuck away from civilization, one mile from the nearest neighbors and half a day from the nearest town. There was no television, because the surrounding hills are too high to let the signal in. The newspaper was always one day late, and they got their water from a creek and their electricity from a generator under the house.

Last night after GMing his every-other-night Harmonium game, Andrew sighed happily and said that the biggest problem in his life right now is not finding the time to watch the last 24 minutes of the recorded "Naruto" movie we started watching the other week. We're always too busy having fun, or taking care of the children, or working alternate shifts from each other, or sleeping. We don't have much time together that isn't already spoken for.

It's really not a bad problem to have. If that's the worst problem in his life right now, then I would say he's doing pretty well. :-)

Andrew's parents arrive tomorrow afternoon for a brief visit. They'll leave early Tuesday morning. This means I really ought to spend time tonight cleaning the attic, where they'll stay. And I fully intend to... just as soon as I finish this beer, and this salad, and solve tonight's Tanga puzzles (all three of them). Oh, and I think I'll make scones first, too. That's not wrong... Is it?

I've already been in the attic quite a bit today, but unfortunately I did not spend any time cleaning. Here's how today was.

My dad and brother have been visiting this week. It's great to have another couple of people to help wrangle the two girls. For instance, I could put the hypermuffin to bed without worrying about the wren fussing in the next room. Posh!

My brother cooked tonight; rice, Guilin Chicken, and Chinese-style scrambled eggs with green onions and cilantro. We had Tsingtao beers to wash it down. The spicy food and beer were great in this heat.

I have no idea how they're sleeping up in the attic. It's a heat box up there.

In other news, I was thinking of buying this cell-phone signal extender from ThinkGeek so that we'd get better coverage inside our house, for our guests' benefit. The condos right behind us block lots of the signal, forcing our many cell-phone-using guests to traipse out the side door or down on the lawn in order to make their calls. But then I saw that they were (1) really expensive, and (2) sold out.

But I could probably afford these Do-It-Yourself Drinking Straws.

Andrew's parents are here for at least a week, running around after the hypermuffin, making me chocolate pudding, and fixing things around the house.

Today Andrew and his dad fixed the upstairs toilet valve and bought components to fix the dining room dimmer switch. They also looked at screen doors so that we would be able to keep the front door open this summer without either (1) being eaten alive by bugs, or (2) letting the hypermuffin escape into the yard.

I found my "Over the Shoulder Baby Holder" baby sling, and little Irina is currently slung up next to me sleeping. I love having her next to me instead of in her crib in the other room or in her carseat. And this way I have two hands free to type... give out snacks... etc.

I bought a Moby Wrap too, but the OTSBH is much faster to "sling up."

In other news, there's a portable device that you strap onto your injured foot and let run for half an hour. It's supposed to stimulate bone growth. The family member who uses it calls it the "voodoo machine" because no one has any idea whether it works, although it apparently generates a "cold tingle."

Also, Harry Potter in Latin.

My dad just got back from a weeklong trip to Japan.

Pictures of a cherry blossom viewing and a jaunt up into the mountains:
http://leukothea.smugmug.com/gallery/2784281#148369912

Here's my brother's account:

Today is the 10th anniversary of my mom dying.

I know that if she had lived, my life would have been drastically different. I probably would not have left Minnesota, for one thing. And I doubt I would be with Andrew. So, since I like my life right now, I can't really imagine this other-life in which she's still alive.

Every so often I dream about her; they're always nice dreams. The last time, we were strolling through a mall together and I was updating her on all the cool things in my life, specifically Vivian, and she was so happy for me.

I'm including a link to a page I wrote in December of 1997, which I recently re-posted here on LJ with the marking "private." I'm turning it "public," but with the warning that it's long, and it's a tear-jerker. Don't read it unless you want to read about someone else's mom dying.

As I reread this now, I know I could edit it down, make it more palatable for public consumption. But I'm not ready to do that yet.

Maybe 10 years isn't long enough to get over the death of someone you love so much. Maybe there's no amount of time.

When he woke up this morning, Andrew said "Apparently we have a Norwegian research library in our attic."

He knew because in his dream, his old youth pastor had come to consult it.

Oh, and he also said that we had a church in our basement.

The youth pastor had brought along not only his two adult daughters, but a teenage boy he'd adopted from Korea. Jokingly, I said "Maybe we could open a kimchee stand on our front porch!" Andrew said "That would be silly."

Andrew's parents are visiting us for a couple of days. So far, Vivian has mostly stared at them gravely, wondering who they are and what they are doing here. Just as soon as she gets used to them, it will be time for them to go.

Andrew is sick. When he's sick, he retreats from contact with humankind, and this is for the best, believe me. He curls up in bed with a box of Kleenex, or sometimes he goes up to the attic and turns the electric heater on full-blast to try to steam the yuckiness out of himself.

When Andrew is sick, he doesn't ask for much. His requirements, in no particular order, are:

• Kleenex.


• Cough drops or peppermint hard candies.


• Spicy jalapeno / habanero Doritos -- the ones marked on the bag as "the hottest chips you can buy."


• Spicy food to eat.


• Coca-cola to drink, or the new favorite -- 2-calorie "Cascadia" grapefruit fizzy drink. As he wryly comments, "Drinking this will probably take only a day off my life, instead of five days."


• Industrial-strength cold medicine, the kind that makes you sleepy, the kind that makes you feel disconnected from your body, as though your head has been hollowed out and only loosely tethered to your neck by some sort of flexible cord. Like a bungee cord. Yeah.

So when I went to the QFC to buy his industrial-strength cold medicine, I discovered that new policies have turned our preferred substances into controlled substances. The shelf, which used to contain boxes and boxes of cold and flu medication, now contains 2/3 boxes, and 1/3 hooks with little cards -- placeholders for the boxes of medicine they have replaced.

When I checked out, I handed my chosen plastic card to the cashier, who then had to trek all the way to the opposite end of the store, where the cold and flu medications are now kept under lock and key. He returned with my one box, as well as the Methamphetamines Precursor Substances Control Log.

The new procedure limits any one customer to buying two boxes, and logs our driver's license and other information. It's all searchable by federal authorities (I think) as they hunt down meth makers.

I can predict a couple things coming from this new requirement.

* QFC won't be reordering drugs with these meth precursor drugs in them. (I think it's pseudoephedrine, although I'm so hopelessly out of the loop of the news that I'm not really sure.) It's too much trouble to stock them.

* The manufacturers who don't use pseudoephedrine in their products will capture more market share.

* Andrew will stay holed up, miserably, in the attic.

Curse you, federal regulators! Give me back my husband!

On Saturday morning, Andrew and I packed up Vivian and an estimated 20,000 pounds of stuff, and trekked out to the Kitsap Peninsula to visit Andrew's great-uncle Ed and great-aunt Charlotte!

Andrew brought:
... a change of clothes,
his toothbrush,
the most recent issue of "The Atlantic," and
his pillow.

I brought:
... a good change of clothes,
a casual change of clothes,
an extra pair of shoes,
my pajamas,
my toothbrush,
contact lens stuff,
my glasses, just in case I lost a contact (I'm the driver in our household),
directions to the ferry and then to the house,
a hostess gift to give Ed and Charlotte,
the camera,
the charger for the camera's battery,
my cell phone,
the cell phone power cord,
a cooler filled with ice, whole milk for Vivian, dill Havarti cheese, Dijon potato salad, and veggie wraps, so we wouldn't have to pay for food on the trip over.
Oh, and two forks. So we could eat the potato salad.

And finally, for Vivian, I brought:
Diaper bag, with cloth diapers, cloth diaper wraps, plastic bags to carry away the dirty ones (so as not to stink up their house)
a new package of 40 disposable diapers
portable crib (little did I know they had a crib already set up!)
portable booster seat (little did I know they had a high chair!)
box of Cheerios
LOTS OF CLOTHES
shoes
pajamas
her three bedtime books
jacket
sun hat
toys for the car trip
books for the car trip
Boppy pillow
blanket

Oy! Vey!

We got there just in time for Vivian's 11:30 nap, pushed back to noon-ish. She was out hard for two hours, then played with extraordinary intensity, then napped hard, then played with extraordinary intensity, then crashed hard for the night.

That was the theme. When Vivian was awake, she was GO-GO-GOING all over the house! Here! There! Everywhere! Eating dirt from the houseplants! Climbing up the stairs to the second floor! Trying to eat a dead ladybug! Pulling books off the shelves! Climbing up the stairs -- again! Shredding the newspaper!

Changing her diaper was an extraordinarily hard struggle. I had to hold her in the air with one arm while wiping her butt with the other hand, because she was kicking and fighting me with all her might -- she didn't want to be changed! She wanted to crawl around and PLAY and EXPLORE!

Oh. My. God. She had SO MUCH ENERGY and she kept me so busy... it was unreal. This was the most frustrated I've been with her for a long time -- but I understand why she was such a handful. She just wanted to explore this fascinating new place.

Ed gathered oysters, and he and Andrew shucked them. For dinner we had two kinds of oysters -- bacon-wrapped, and cornmeal-battered.

At the end of the day, Andrew and I stayed up late chatting with Ed about religion (he's a retired pastor), then retired to the "main wing" of the house, which is used for guests while Ed and Charlotte live in the smaller wing. Andrew and I had a palatial room with a king-size bed, a deck, and a wraparound view of the Olympic Mountains and Hood Canal, which is about 20 feet from the house's back door. It was breathtaking. Plus the bathroom had a large jetted Jacuzzi, which helped melt away our day's tensions. (I didn't take any pictures of the mountains, because my nature photography never turns out well -- I don't have professional equipment. But the view was gorgeous.)

This morning I got up early and watched songbirds eating nuts and seeds in the feeders, sipping strong coffee that Ed made and eating "Astoria toast" that he gets from Oregon. (Very powdery, dry, sugary toast... kind of good!) I walked half a mile to get the Sunday papers, so that was a nice brisk walk out in the middle of the forest.

After Andrew got up, we had waffles and bacon. And we listened to a CD from the St. Olaf Choir, so it felt just like Sunday morning -- or like I was back at St. Olaf singing with the choir again. Or possibly, it felt like both. :-)

Ed got me into "Sudoku," which is a number game similar to a crossword. Since another friend had just recommended it, it was an easy sell.

We're home now, and we even got to bring more raw oysters and a blank Sudoku sheet!

Pictures: http://leukothea.smugmug.com/gallery/1447964/2/69550883 and following.

Whew!