Hi Mom and family,

It's 5 AM Friday morning. Chilly enough for the sweatshirt and the furry throw around my legs. It's been cooler, much of the week, since a wind blew in late Monday afternoon, the remnants of the storm that you all recently experienced in California.

We've been getting ready for the party and enjoying Lyssa's visit. They've been continuing on finishing the pizza oven, we've been working on the yard work, and, for the last two days, we've been enjoying Lyssa and Mike and the baby's visit (and last night a wonderful evening with all of us at Dale Jr.'s for dinner).

Monday morning, Cam from down the street was working on the finishing touches of the metal work. He attached the decorative brand of trim on the tops of all the steel doors of the pizza oven, and the magnificent "deer antler" ornament, the one made of transmission parts, on the chimney over the fire pit. They look so classy.

Here's a photo of Cam and Dale, "sighting" the ornament to decide how high to place it. Cam had already drawn little pencil lines to center it with.

Cam has also welded some extra ornamental and strengthening pieces to the hook/pulley that we had had the Renaissance Festival blacksmith make for us. I don't know if "classy" is the word for the way that piece of hardware came out, but it's certainly unique.

I did an hour of weeding, all of one of the vegetable garden beds, the one I have been letting re-seed itself with alfalfa and Mexican basil. It took longer than usual because I had to be careful not to pull up any alfalfa or Mexican basil seedlings. The Mexican basil seedlings had not sprouted yet anyway. Their appearance is always received with joy on my part, there's just something about baby seedlings sprouting.

I went through all my bills Monday, which took two hours because it's been too long. I am now an honest woman again, as far as the property tax office of Pinal County is concerned. I should have paid the second half by January, but sent it in February, so extra charges had accrued.

It's a relief to have all those checks in the mail, as I've been telling myself that I've let too much time go by since I went through everything. Before my last weekend with you, I did go through and check all the ones I call the "turn-off-ables": gas, water, power, sewer, etc.

Dale Jr. called and said that they would be able to make the party. I'm so glad.

He said that he was sorry it had been so long since I'd seen the kids. I said, "Well, I haven't called either, I got behind on everything when I had the flu, and can't seem to catch up."

I barely finished the bills before it was time to take a shower and get up to the Boys & Girls Club for the drama club. The kids that were present worked really hard, but I'm have trouble with absenteeism. I've learned from experience that I only get great attendance if I go up there the night before and call the kids' parents with a reminder that drama club is the following afternoon. (Legally, if I call the parents I must do so from the club's land line.)

On the way home, I stopped at Wal-Mart to see if I could find tomato plants. The only plants they had in Early Girl, (the hybrid type which works for me here) were largish ones, and I cringed at the price.  I've been using seeds the last few years, but it's really gotten too late for that.

Checking my e-mail at Starbuck's, I was pleased that our cousin Grace had replied to my e-mail invitation and that they'd be pleased to come to the pizza party. I didn't look at all of the other replies yet, I just felt like concentrating on getting the remaining invitations out first.

I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing, but I find that I don't really feel alive unless I do things which make me nervous. "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." (Just a little bit past it.)

Tuesday morning Cam brought over his first attempt at making the counterweight for the lid on the smoker. (In the past Dale Sr. has always used a large piece of plywood for the lid.) For the counter-weight he used the press cylinder from some sort of machine press. At 38 pounds, it was several pounds too heavy, so Cam took it back home to cut it down.

I was relieved that my computer tutor canceled because prepping the tomato bed prep took all day. In sections, I dug out the top six inches or so of soil, then dug out an amount of the subsoil which was approximately equal in volume to the amount of compost I would add to that section, and cart it away to use in landscaping across the street.

Then I mix equal amounts of compost and topsoil together and fill in the hole. Because I use sunken beds so that I can flood them, the volume of soil in the bed cannot increase, which is why I have to dig out some of the subsoil each time I add a significant amount of compost.

The last step is to flood the bed and use the level of the receding water to make sure the whole thing is level. The bed must be level so that  all through the season, I can just stick the hose through the fence at one end, and the bed will flood evenly.

In the evening I was so tired that I would have been happy to grab a sausage and a nuked potato. But it was really nice that Dale Sr. cooked: pasta with sauteéd sausage slices and veggies and canned tomatoes in it, with shredded Mexican white cheese (sort of like feta).

I made the phone calls I had to make, to those people whose e-mail I don't have. There are still three or four for whom all I have is a mailing address, so I sent them them notes in the mail. The notes should get there before next Tuesday.

 Wednesday morning I was very, very sore from all of the digging on Tuesday. I managed to do the dishes and a little tidying, but when I went out to plant the tomato plants in the newly prepped and leveled bed, I could only do about four before I just hurt too much.

For my Arabic lesson I wrote sentences having to do with exiting the freeway. About seeing a sign on the freeway which said to exit the freeway due to an accident, hearing the same thing on the radio, exiting the freeway, etc. My rule to myself is that if I have to explain something to her in English (in this case, explaining why I was late) I must write as part of my Arabic lesson, whatever I said in English. My reason for doing this is that it causes me to learn, in Arabic, the vocabulary and verb forms which are used in the conversations of daily life. 

 Similar to Monday, only half of the kids were there for drama club, but they practiced really hard. For the last quarter-hour of our rehearsal, I let them do the "improv" games they like so much. Then two girls were showing me how they were trying to do the tango, apparently a popular music video includes a little bit of tango in it. ("And then the guy puts a rose in his mouth!", they said, which cracked me up.)

 I called Dale Sr., and as he still hadn't heard from Mike and Lyssa, I stayed later and I helped the girls with their homework. I like to do that if I can, because the drama club takes them way from their usual homework time at the club. I'm really enjoying working with these particular kids.

Lyssa had suggested that we all go out for Mexican food when they arrived. Good Mexican food (none at all, practically) is not available in their part of British Columbia and Mike hankers for it. They didn't arrive until 8PM, so our favorite local Mexican places were closed.

I was surprised that they still wanted to go out to eat, after that long trip with the baby. But little Waylon was doing great, having slept almost the whole way on the plane. (When they got off the plane, people in the nearby rows of seats expressed surprise that there had been a baby there at all, as they'd heard nothing.)

As soon as Lyssa and Mike arrived, she and I  took him in the bedroom to change his diaper, and he kept grinning at me.

We went out to look at the pizza oven/smoker, which they were very impressed with. Mike kept handing Waylon over to me so I could hold him.

Dale Jr. had suggested a Mexican-themed chain restaurant which would still be open, Chili's, at the big shopping center about fifteen minutes away. (Dale Sr. and I rarely go to a chain restaurant, and never to a big shopping center unless he wants to go to the big outdoor supply store). Dale Jr. also invited us all for dinner the following night.

We had a good time; the baby continued relaxed and looking around him, until he dropped off in Lyssa's arms. I held Waylon for a while so that Lyssa could eat, and he just kept looking around. By the time we got the waitress to take this photo, he had dropped off to sleep.

Sorry this photo is so small, I don't seem to be able to get it to copy large.
 


Yesterday morning I was even more sore, and grumpy because of it. I woke early, sat there agitated about all there was to do getting ready for the party, but then fell asleep again, and was barely up, showered and dressed when Lyssa and Mike arrived. I was grateful that Dale Sr. had gone out to Safeway to get bagels and jam. Lyssa and Mike stopped over before their drive down to Tucson to see Lyssa's high school friend Melissa. Dale Sr. cooked them scrambled eggs, and Mike helped me figure out a list of ingredients to buy for the pizzas.

I had a hair appointment, which took up the morning. I was so sore in the afternoon that it seemed difficult just to do a little yard work. I raked leaves and into piles looked all over for the pitchfork. Finally I called Dale Sr. and he admitted that it was still in his truck. So I transplanted some plants into pots.

We had a delightful evening at Dale Jr.'s. Ethan was hilarious. He and Shelby do a lot of energetic horseplay, the whole time he was there he was running, running, running. Because I could see that he enjoyed the physical play so much, I motioned him to me and lifted him high up in the air several times, to his delight.

A little later, for the first time ever he called me "Grandma", which thrilled me; he came over and tugged my sleeve and said, "Gamma, come see," and took me to his room to see his box of tiny Lego figures.

He is learning his colors, "Red, geen, bue, puh-poo, and ye-ee-yoh". Of the picture-books I got him, the one that seemed to make the most impression was one I almost didn't buy, one which had different quantities of big colored dots on each page.

Dale Jr. had done most of the cooking, starting the "carnitas" (shredded beef cooked in the Mexican style) and the pot of beans the night before. He had warm tortillas under towels, and lined up on the stove and counter, the beans, chopped onion, tomato, and pepper, guacamole, etc. Delicious!

I took Waylon outside for a while so Lyssa could eat, and Ethan followed me out there and was running round and round the patio, pushing  his plastic tricycle, talking excitedly. I can see that it's really good that this kid has a place where he can run!

While we ate, we talked more about the pizza dough. Lyssa and Mike would be leaving early to drive to LA to go to that wedding, so it was my last chance to "pick his brains" about the pizza-making process. I was quite relieved to find out that the dough actually will get made the morning of the day before the party, raised in a cooler, and then rolled out twice that evening. Then the rounds of dough are placed between sheets of wax paper. I was quite pleased that the rolling out of the dough will not be taking place the night of the party; it should simplify the logistics quite a bit.

Sorry again for the size of the photo. Dale Jr. is planning to send it, regular size, to your display device, Mom.
 

Love,
Lennie