serendipity

Dance of the seven scales

I'm in the kitchen, doing the dishes, like a good wife.

Make a note of that, the good wife part doesn't happen every day.

We have a house guest staying with us, a very nice fly fishing guide from Chile. His name is Carlos.

Carlos and The Mister are talking fishing, of course. And I have been interested, but now there is work to do. A kitchen to clean, coffee to make, children to put to bed (oh my goodness, it's after 10!). And while I like fly fishing, I can only talk fly fishing for so long, and then I want to read a book. Or catch real fish. Or go to bed.

The two of them are huddled around the laptop and I can hear music in the background. 

That rhythm.

The grinding guitar.

The driving beat of pent-up excitement*.

Huh?

Are they watching porn? Right here in the kitchen?

With me five feet away? Children in the next room?

No way.

That would be insanity, right?

A virtually guaranteed tantrum from the wife, even the best wife, which of course I am.

Unless.

The type of porn they are watching is, er, special.

Something the whole family could watch.

That's right.

You heard it here first.

The driving beat.

The sexy guitar.

The fish jumping in the air, tail flashing as it falls back, teasingly, into the water.

Cue: close up of the splash.

Uh huh. It's fish porn.

Available on cable, pay per view and the good old Internets

 

*For the record, I have no idea what real porn music sounds like. Except um, from movies. Movies that involve major Hollywood stars like Demi Moore and not "actors" with names like Gail Force and Anita Blond.

Another good sign

Nothing that says "retail" like a neon sign. And since we have all this great traffic on highway 101 we just had to put up a neon sign. Not just any neon sign, but the Best Neon Sign Ever.

Behold:

 

Neon sign

Designed by the very talented Karl Kirbus (Pro staff extraordinaire) and built by Petersen Neon (Shawna rocks), it's the best neon sign we could have hoped for.

Up up and away

I learned to ride a bike when I was seven. I don't remember much from my childhood, but I do remember the day I found my balance and my freedom all in a single, albeit shaky, moment. What an amazing feeling. Excited, proud and just a little scared, I took off down the street away from home, knowing home was right behind me.

This summer we made a deal with Juliette: if she learned to swim, we would buy her a bike and teach her to ride. She reluctantly started swimming lessons last week, but she is not past the put-your-head-under-water-wihtout-totally-freaking-out stage. Far from real swimming.

Not a girl noted for following the rules, yesterday when we were in rural Sonoma she picked up a bike that belonged to a 10 year-old boy. She sat on the seat and walked the bike down the trail until she found her balance. After a short time she put her feet on the pedals and it was all over. With almost no help from anyone, she taught herself to ride. All she wanted from me was to run behind her and say occasional words of encouragement.

Really, all she needed was for me not to stop her.

So I didn't.

Today, acting under the premise of striking while the iron is hot, even though it technically broke the swim-bike deal, I bought her a bike. The bike shop didn't have a ton of choices but it did have the one perfect bike for her. Purple - not pink.

He added a bell and a rockin' helmut and she was off.

 

2nd day on a bike