Tiny Dancers

On Monday night I came down with food poisoning. Before that, I attended my daughter's low key, pre-school dance recital. The "stage" was a rug and some spare floor boards to tap upon. The backdrop was the gym door and a fire extinguisher. As only a parent would, I found it to be the best dance performance I've ever seen. Well, close to the best. In the top three for sure. 

This is the little one wearing a tutu to be like her big sister. I didn't mean to crop her head out of the photo. I think she was doing her version of "Jazz Hands!"

Palms Provide No Shade

Tonight, as I blow dried my daughters' hair, my mind started to wander to this blog. What should I write about tonight? The felled tree, the cardboard bakery or the tea party attended by naked Ariel? I hesitate to write about any of these topics because I don't have particularly compelling photos to go with them. Nevertheless, the photos were taken today so at least I can claim they're current.

First, the felled tree. I don't actually have any photos to illustrate this subject, but two days ago the condo association that borders our back yard cut down a large pine tree. I was the one who requested that they do so, but I didn't actually think that they would. The tree was tilting over our property at approximately a forty-five degree angle, dropping needles and making lots of shade.

I feel a little guilt about this tree, but not a lot. I will plant another, better-suited one to make up for it, but one can't help feel sadness when a tree is cut down. Before we bought this house, I felt that no tree should be cut down. I remember talking to a co-worker about the large tree in her yard. The roots were damaging her foundation and the tree was going to have to go. I naively thought this was a tragedy. That a mature tree should be saved at all cost.

Now I see that sometimes trees that weren't appropriately planted become dangerous or silly. (I'm going to seem like I'm tree-cutting happy, but we also had two palms trees removed from our front lawn a couple months ago. These are the silly trees that I'm referring to: two fifty foot palms sticking up in the middle of a lawn, not providing shade, not close enough to hang a hammock between and tall enough that all you could see of them was two brown trunks. This is silly tree planting if you ask me. I don't live in Hawaii or Los Angeles. I don't need palm trees next to the pine tree and azalea bushes also planted-by someone else-in my yard. Out of all the beautiful trees available, why plant palms that you know are going to grow three stories or higher?) I don't generally rant on here, but the palms get me going.

Back to newly felled tree in the back. Now that it's gone, a once very shady corner of my garden is very sunny. Everything I've planted there is no longer well-placed. While my shade plants are probably not too happy, the sun shining down on my yard is a happy thing.

Now I've spent a lot more time that I had planned going on my tirade about trees. So I will be briefer about the rest. The cardboard bakery we made today does not look anything like the example in the book I brought home from the library. It's an awesome book by designer Todd Oldham, entitled Kid Made Modern. This book is full of kids' crafts inspired by Mid-Century Modern artists and designers. (I pretend that I check out these kids' crafts books for my daughter but really they're for me.) My daughter also likes this book and she picked out a "modernist fort made from cardboard boxes" based on the mid-century case study houses that she wanted to make (and has been bugging me to make for four days now.)

She decided that she did not want a house, but a bakery. This is what I came up with: (I don't know what makes it a bakery though.)

 Here is the bakery-inspired tea party that naked Ariel attended:

The flowers that graced the "tables" of the bakery/cafe.

The cafe "chairs." Each one decorated by freshly picked flowers. (I have to fight the urge to prohibit any flower picking from my garden. I blame my flower-greediness on being an only child. Sharing, even with one's daughters, is not easy.)

A Wedding-Like Event

We recently attended a wedding-like event in Seattle. It was "wedding-like" because the couple was not getting married that day, just celebrating their love, their friends and family and their baby, due in two months. The bride-like mom-to-be looked all glowy in a teal dress and an ostrich feathered boa. The groom-like father-to-be played the trumpet to announce the start of the party. The as-yet-to-arrive baby looked big in her mom's belly. It was an unusual, hilarious, relaxed affair held in a funky yet enchanted ballroom somewhere near the freeway. It was a personality-filled party, true to the couple we were celebrating.

I have always been enamored with Seattle. The first time I visited I was five. I don't remember that trip much, but I've had a version of Seattle in my head that I've loved ever since. I have been lucky with weather there too. I seem to always catch the city in at least part sun. Seattle on a sunny day is a good place to be, I think.

I'm just including a few photos for it was a short trip. 



The requisite Pike's Place Market shot.



Lanterns aglow at the wedding-like event.



Outside the ballroom was a courtyard filled with potted maples, strung lights and ashtrays. (It is the Northwest after all, where smoking, apparently helps some folks make it through the gray.)



The BEST mac n' cheese in the world! (Actually it's called The World's Best Mac n' Cheese.) It comes from Beecher's Handmade Cheese right near Pike's Place Market. I waited in line for this and it was awesome.