The search is over

Stella the parakeet is an excellent mimic and her vocabulary is growing rapidly.  Her favorite phrase to repeat is "pretty birdy!" followed by a low wolf whistle.  It was amusing and pleasant to hear her repeat our words until the day she began repeating them while vigorously humping her favorite mirror.  Then it turned a little weird.

Stella's "Pretty birdy pretty birdy you're such a pretty birdy" is now accompanied by vicious cage shaking as the mirror gets what's coming to it.  If we have visitors over, I try to distract her by waving towels at her cage, "Stella, stop it, my God, you're in the middle of the kitchen and I'm serving appetizers!" but she will not be swayed from her mission of making love to that pretty, pretty birdy.

Lucien has asked lots of questions and I've answered them honestly.  I think it's great for him to have a front row seat to the birds and the bees -- the bird part anyway -- over his cereal bowl in the morning.  The teacher has already called to report Lucien told her, "my bird wants to have sex with herself all the time" but after my explanation we had a good laugh. 

Stella is a true Narcissus. It also appears she's reaching sexual maturity.  It also seems fairly obvious Stella is a male.  We're not changing her name, though.  I don't think she'll care, doubt she'll even notice because she's so busy -- *bang bang bang bang* -- over there. 

Alex and I took part in a scavenger hunt over the weekend.  We were teamed up with dear old friends who live in Tacoma.  Our team name was Panda Lovegods.  We dressed in black and white, chewed on bamboo, dragged a few stuffed pandas around on leashes.  Nobody on the streets gave us a second glance because such antics are par for the course in Seattle.

The scavenger hunt brought out the seething competitive side that exists in all four of us.  We're pretty laid back people in daily living but something happened as soon as the competition began.  Alex was our driver and was so amped up he didn't break just some of the driving rules, he broke ALL the rules as we careened around the city screaming. 

Our friend and teammate, Tacoma Dad, said last year they were paired with a much less competitive couple who, instead of rushing from clue to clue, insisted on moseying.  He said by the end of the evening the woman was crying and begging him to slow down, then telling him he had ruined the entire evening for her and it wasn't fun anymore.  He tried to tell her, "There's no crying in scavenger hunts, hippie!" but it didn't get her to move any faster.

This year's hunt led us to parks, laundromats, a mambo dance lesson, and a karaoke bar where we were forced to perform Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer."  It's tough to get the crowd on your side when you're singing "The Boxer." They all stood there, bored, arms crossed like "Who are these clowns with pandas on leashes singing a snoozefest song in the middle of our party?" 

And why is the one guy dressed like the Hamburglar?

One stop had us throwing darts at balloons in a park.  There may have been one errant dart accidentally thrown at a dude on a bike but thankfully he didn't get hurt.  As an aside, is it legal to throw darts in public parks?  Because it shouldn't be.

My favorite task was reproducing the Miro painting currently hanging outside the Seattle Art Museum --

The art museum is where we pulled ahead of the other teams thanks to exquisite teamwork.  Tacoma Mom drew the shapes, the rest of us intertwined our arms at odd angles and climbed over each others backs to get them colored in. We were like a writhing ball of pythons clutching markers.  A group of tourists took pictures of us.  "It's true, Seattle people are so odd!" they may be telling friends back in Saint Louis right now.

At the second to last stop, things got rough.  The clue handed to us at the pitstop was a bag of fortune cookies.  As we ran to our car, which was parked in front of a fire hydrant obviously because anything to win, I opened my fortune cookie, pulled out the fortune and popped the cookie into my mouth.  I couldn't help it; fortune cookies are delicious.

Suddenly Tacoma Dad said, "Guys, there are two pieces of paper in the cookies! Find both of them!" and my heart sank.  "Uh-oh," I thought looking down at the solo piece of paper in my lap, "I'm pretty sure I'm eating a clue."

Indeed I was.  I fished the second piece of paper out of my mouth but it was no longer legible.  We hoped to figure out the clue using just the other three but those clues put together read, "GO....TO....PIER..."  and Tacoma Dad yelled, "Dammit, MJ, you ate the pier number!" We all agreed it was the most important piece to the puzzle and a most unfortunate circumstance.

We got back on track but then things got worse. We really botched it at our last stop after having been in first place for a long, long time.  In a catastrophic misinterpretation (with just a touch of laziness), we gave the tickets we were supposed to use for ourselves on Seattle's Great Wheel to a passing couple.  They were crabby people and in retrospect probably did not deserve our gift --

It's a long story.
We were wrong.

Immediately after it happened we received a phone call from the organizers telling us even though we were in first place and technically were finished, we were going to finish as "incomplete" because we hadn't completed our final task.  Our dream of victory was dashed, it was over. 

We walked back to the car (parked in a "police vehicle only" spot obviously) with heads hung low.  We are all buoyant by nature, however, so soon decided we won in our hearts and were the best scavenger hunt team ever.  Then we went to a bar to kill time while waiting for the other loser teams to finish.  We took pictures of the animal puppets we obtained earlier in the evening drinking beer because what else are you going to do with them?

We're going to do the hunt again next year, only this time I'm not going to eat any clues and we're going to make sure we don't do any wrong things.

Alex dozed off to sleep next to me later that night -- but suddenly he sat bolt upright in bed and said with a hint of panic to his voice, "Are you sure it's OK to leave the car here???!!!"  I smoothed his hair and spoke soothingly, "It's OK, baby, it's over...it's over....go back to sleep....hush....hush....."


Competitive scavenger hunting does things to people,
MJ

Inexplicable Gumby

We hiked our small children to the edge of a cliff over the weekend.  You can chuck those parenting awards right over here because they're definitely for us, folks.

Alex and I love the mountains and have been looking forward to the day we turn our city kids into hikers.  We chose an "easy" trail to start -- four miles round-trip with an 1,100 foot elevation gain and a killer view -- in the Cascades just forty minutes outside the city.

Our day of nature started off shaky, however, when Lucien eyed the destination peak from the parking lot and asked where the elevator was.  I told him there wasn't an elevator and he said, "Do I at least get a ladder, then?"  I began to suspect the hike was going to be an uphill climb in more ways than one.

I missed you, smell-good mountain forest

Halfway through the hike, Alex and I each had a frowny-faced child on our shoulders.  The kids hung in for as long as they could but the trail was steep and their legs are short and that was not a pleasing combination.  As I dragged Lucien up the last part of the trail by his arm, he detailed all the ways I was a horrible mommy for making him do this.

We reached the top and discovered the view almost completely obscured by fog and a sheer cliff staring us in the face.  We didn't stick around too long.  Good news is the way down was a lot of fun.  Lucien practiced counting to 100 about 100 times, which wasn't annoying at all.

That's a cliff behind my baby.  Gimme a mother award!

Despite the crabbiness and the fogginess and the incessant counting, Al and I were euphoric to be out there again.  There is nothing like the smell of the Pacific Northwest -- fresh and piney and damp earthy with an occasional whiff of red licorice.  (I had Twizzlers in my pocket.)

That evening, Alex and I attended a fundraising auction organized by our friend, Seattle Dad.  He's part of an organization whose members hit up their friends for money so they can take fancy vacations to Belize and Nicaragua and pretend to do "good work" but they are fooling no one.

While getting ready for the event, I became clothing illiterate.  I couldn't pull a decent outfit together to save my life.  At one point I looked like a Golden Girl.  At another point, Alex said, "You look like you're mentally deficient and you dressed yourself for the first time today."  There was an impressive mountain of discarded clothing in the corner.  I ended up in something safe and boring and am very fearful I've lost my Paris style mojo.

There was a silent auction and a live auction at Seattle Dad's event.  For the silent auction, I had my eye on just one thing -- a set of handmade Zambian chickens.  Unfortunately, several other people also wanted the handmade Zambian chickens so we circled and eyed each other for an hour.  The bidding got intense until I finally decided the Zambian chickens were too rich for my blood and walked away with head hung low.

In a related thought, silent auctions turn friends into enemies.  What was at first friendly wine-drinking and chit-chatting turned into, "B*tch, you best not be bidding on my spa package again."  Sleep with one eye open if you're ever a winner at a silent auction.

I have to mention Tuna Fish Girl.  Tuna Fish Girl was drunk.  I met her swaying in front of a case of 100 cans of tuna.  She really wanted that case of tuna.  She wanted it so badly she'd even outbid herself.  She'd outbid herself by so much, I didn't have the heart to tell her she could buy tuna for less than half that price down the street at the supermarket.  She said the tuna fish was going to be "the best gift ever" for her boyfriend.  I'm not sure what kind of kinky sh*t those two are into, but I do hope she won the cutthroat bidding against herself.

Alex was later handed his envelope of items he'd won in the silent auction.  He proudly pushed the paper towards me, and there was the undeniable proof my Al is the best -- he'd  won the handmade Zambian chickens, slid in there two seconds before the auction ended and outbid all those horrible chicken-coveting harpies.  I love that man.

We're Zambian chickens. Who the hell are you?

The live auction was a different kind of crazy.  It's a bad idea to have a live auction after everyone in the room has consumed large quantities of free wine at the bar.  I think a lot of people woke up the next morning and said, "Crap, I bid WHAT for that seven-day golf vacation?  I don't even golf!"  Maybe it should be a requirement people pass a breathalyzer before claiming their auction items, but then I guess there wouldn't be much money raised.

A friend at our table, Portland Dad (finally, someone with a different name on this damn blog) grabbed Alex's bid number several times and bid "for" him.  It got tense when Portland Dad bid $4,000 for a new heating system on Alex's behalf, especially when we don't even have a house to heat.  We mouthed to Portland Dad "We will keeeel you" and made strangling motions until, lucky for him, someone who actually had a house outbid us.  Then we all had the biggest laugh ha ha still friends, silly!

 It's Alex.  No idea.  It was late.

Alex and I won some great stuff.  In addition to the Zambian chickens, we won a V.I.P. day at the racetrack for four people, trapeze lessons for me and Al, private swimming lessons for Lucien with the coach of the Seattle University swim team, and a five-course Indian meal prepared at the house of our choice (it will not be ours because we don't have one) for six people.  Alex told me to win the Indian dinner "no matter what" so I bid my little heart out until I won.  Then Alex said, "OMG, you bid WHAT for the Indian dinner? OMG!" 

You should know by now, Al, that when you tell Mama to win, MAMA IS GOING TO WIN, WIN, BEAT THEM ALL even if it means certain bankruptcy.  

After the auction, unfortunately, there was karaoke.  As the place cleared and people gathered their loot and went home, everyone we knew was still there being obnoxious and terrible.

Al and Portland Dad doing "I'm Too Sexy."

Gumby suddenly and inexplicably showed up, which made me nearly pee myself.

I didn't ask either Al or Portland Dad if I could use the following footage because I was afraid they would say no.  It may disappear suddenly one of these days when they discover it so let's enjoy it while we can.  The guys are horrible but it's Inexplicable Gumby that really sends this one over the top.




Happy Valentines Day, all.  Fingers crossed you receive Zambian Chickens from your loved ones, too,
MJ