Category: Out & About

The Pictures Are Back!

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Yes!  The house is FINALLY under controll enough that I can once again blog without guilt!

Which means that I can add purty pictures to the blog!  Check it out:

Alpine Loop, 5 October 2008. PURTY!
Alpine Loop, 5 October 2008. PURTY!

Yesterday Brian and I spent the second half of General Conference driving the family down to the grandparents’ house in Provo.  We decided to take the scenic route, going out to Park City, then down through Midway and ending with the spectacular Alpine Loop, a winding road that takes you through the aspen-and-evergreen forests of Mt. Timpanogos.  We saw many, many scenic vistas, and many, many people taking photos of them.  Playing Spot-the-Tripod became something of a sport.  Alas, most of MY photos didn’t turn out so well, and the one above doesn’t quite capture the Beethoven’s-Ninth-Symphony-Esque-Grandiosity of it all.  Let’s just say that a few days ago I was moping about, missing autumn on the East Coast, but now I don’t feel that way at all.  Hurrah for snowcapped mountain peaks!

Here’s another spectacular photo, although you may not appreciate it as much as I do:

This is Eleanor’s first-ever attempt at writing her name!  Well, her first two attempts, really.  She’s very interested in reading and writing, which is a big change of pace compared to Jeffrey.  Jeffrey, at age six, still needs to be prodded with a hot iron just to pick up a pencil, while Ella’s diving into the whole alphabet thing full on. 

Eleanor and I were so excited about her name-writing that we had to celebrate with some Pumpkin Brains:

“Pumpkin Brains” is just the name we give on of my family’s favorite Halloween treats.  You mix dry-roasted peanuts and candy corn together, and eat them together in the same bite.  The resulting combination tastes a LOT like a Baby Ruth bar and is mega-addictive.  Before I discovered Pumpkin Brains, I simply could not understand the appeal of candy corn (on its own, it is rather oo-ugh) but nowadays I usually insist on hunting down the Brach’s brand candy corn.  (Oh, so far superior to every other brand.  I can only find it at Target.)  Getting the correct 2:1 peanut-to-candy ratio is, needless to say, essential.

To See What He Could See

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Wow!

I actually survived staying in a camping trailer with two kids, a baby, my parents and 13-year-old brother!  While the trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons was very fun, it was nice to get home (my parents spent the entire trip looking concerned and saying, “Brooke, I hope you’re having fun,” and I spent the entire time looking concerned and saying “Mom, I hope we aren’t ruining your trip”).

But it WAS fun.  Jeffrey joined the Yellowstone Junior Rangers and took his duties VERY seriously (his application said “I want to help make the park a perfect home for animals”).  When he earned his official Junior Ranger Patch he insisted on carrying it around in his pocket for the rest of the day.

His favorite part of the trip was swimming in the Firehole River and the String Lake.  Everything with him was cool once we convinced him that a bear wasn’t going to jump on him the second he stepped outside.  (Darn those “Camper Beware” signs with photos of bears invading tents!  Don’t they know that paranoid five-year-olds are going to see them?)

Jeff also acquired a coonskin cap, which he wore while strutting around shirtless.  Oh, he was also wearing this cheesy leather ‘n’ lanyard “medicine bag” he got at the Shoshone museum in Colter Bay (which I had to lace together for him, arrgh).  All in all, he looked like a kid who went off to Camp Gowanagin, circa 1952.

Eleanor spent a good portion of the trip in a sparkly green and pink “Ranger Girl” t-shirt, and kept a ladybug flashlight in her pocket.  She was a little too frightened of the lake and river for much swimming, but she loved hiking, getting shoulder rides from Grandpa, and sharing a bunk bed with Jeffrey.

William, owing to our cramped living space, didn’t get much crawl-around time, but I did let him play in the dirt quite a bit, which he LOVED LOVED LOVED.  Oh, the love affair with Le Dirt: it starts young don’t it?  His main souvenir was a Folkmanis wolf finger puppet.  He loves to give it “loveys” and chew its tail.  Kicking his feet in the Firehole River was also a plus.

Okay, now for the vital stats of the trip.  You ready?

Wildlife sighted:

  • Osprey
  • Elk
  • Bison (including two juveniles butting heads)
  • Coyote (it was lounging under a tree and flicking its big ears at us)
  • BEAR!!

It was right off the side of the road! I haven’t seen a bear that close in the park since forever.  My dad teased my mom by pretending to want to get out of the car and “get a closer look.”  She totally fell for it and freaked out.  Ah, Mom and Dad: some things never change.

Things we saw fall in the hot pots:

  • two hats
  • an umbrella

Yeah, it was a windy day.

Number of states whose license plates we saw during our four-day trip:

  • ALL FIFTY!

Yes, EVEN Maine and EVEN Hawaii.  BOO-YAH, BABY!

That was pretty much my proudest accomplishment during the trip, other than the ol’ “nobody died” thing.

‘Cause, y’know.  Fifty states.  That’s a lot to keep track of.

One Month Later . . .

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So.  We’ve been in Utah for a month, and we STILL haven’t been able to move into our new house.

For those of you who haven’t heard the spiel, we are going to be living in Brian’s grandmother’s house, which is in a great neighborhood close to the university.  The only caveat is that it hasn’t been touched up or whatnot since about 1973 (yellow shag carpet!  avocado appliances!  silver-and-hot-pink flower wallpaper! macrame plant holders!).  Therefore we and my in-laws have been embarking on that most treasured of American pastimes, remodeling.

The theory was that it would all be finished by mid-July, but here we are on 7/12 and the house still has no stairs.

That’s right, no stairs, just a rickety frame of slats to get you from upstairs to down.  According to Ye Olde Contractor Lore, the stairs are traditionally the last thing to be built.  (Why?  Whyyy?  WHYYYY?)  Meanwhile, I feel as if my brain is moving through a fog of paint chips, molding strips, and carpet samples.  Auugh.

Where are we now?  In jolly old West Point, also known as the tiny town where my parents live, also known as Suburban Purgatory.  There isn’t much here besides llama farms and a Wal-Mart.  Ten years ago when my parents first moved here, there was no Wal-Mart.  The arrival of the Wal-Mart was a big deal.  Sigh.

You’ll note the charming image of the city hall at the top of this posting.  They built that thing a couple of years ago and are so proud of the clock tower that it appears on the front page of the town website twice.  Like: “hey, look at what an up-and-coming town we are!  We have a clock tower!”

Oh, I shouldn’t be so negative (although I should note that the original name for the town of West Point was “Muskrat Springs”).  We got to see the adorable local 4th-of-July parade (Ella was extra cute when it came to waving at the people on the floats and scored beaucoup candy and a Frisbee, while Jeffrey rode in a truck in the parade with my dad and threw Tootsie-Rolls at the crowd).  I’ve discovered that there’s a rather awesome donut shop just up the road (double fudge cake doughnuts, swoon).  There’s a playground just behind my parent’s house, and on the odd day when Brian is around in the evening, we pile the kids in the car, swing through Arctic Circle for vanilla cones, and then drive out to Antelope Island to watch the sunset.

Plus, it’s always great to see your kids forming that primeval bond with their grandparents.  Hurrah for the grandmas and grandpas, for they doth rock my preschoolers’ worlds.

Off We Go!

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Today is the day we pack up and drive out West to Salt Lake City. It’s sad to leave Pittsburgh, which has been our family’s home for seven years.

Our children haven’t known any other home but this one!

Okay, okay . . . can’t think about it too much, or I’ll start crying so hard that my tears will short out the keyboard. Let’s look on the Bright Side! Like this:

This is a bag of my Summer Reading. The game I’m playing is that I can only read adult fiction (which I like to do in summer, to get a break from the kidlit, excellent though it may be), and that I couldn’t spend more than $15 on the books. So, yeah — all of these books, which are in excellent condition, were found at book sales and such for next to nothing. Most of them haven’t even been read. Thank you, Oprah, award committees, and bestseller lists — for making wealthy people who have no reading time buy books, and them immediately give them to thrift stores and library book sales. The impoverished bibliophiles of the world salute you!

Well . . . the books inside the bag are part of this game. Road Trip USA and Princess Ben were purchased new. We need the road trip book to find out where the best patty melts are on the road, and I’m planning to read Princess Ben to Brian on the trip.

The picture’s awfully blurry, ain’t it?  Here’s what’s in the bag:

  • Several magazines
  • Middlesex
  • Cold Mountain
  • Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
  • Naked
  • Me Talk Pretty One Day — I’ve actually read this before, but Brian hasn’t
  • Straight Man
  • Possession
  • The Glass Castle
  • The Jane Austen Book Club

Unread bestsellers, every one.  Think that’ll last me for the weeks until I can get moved in and shimmy up a new library card?  It’ll be about a month or two before that happens (oog.  How will I survive?!?).

I won’t be able to post for a while.  We’ll be staying with my parents for a few weeks while some work is done on our new house, and time online will be parceled out between me and my 13-year-old brother (siiiiiighhhhh). Love that guy, but it’s hard to get him off the ‘puter.  There are more “Remembering Pittsburgh” posts in the works, as well as a great story about how Jeffrey’s been begging to convert to Catholocism.  Confused?  Intrigued?  Stay tuned.

Ta!

Loving & Leaving Pittsburgh: Squirrel Hill

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Squirrel Hill is my ‘hood.  Technically I don’t live in Squirrel Hill (I’m not saying where), but it’s definitely my favorite of the thirty-odd neighborhoods in the city of Pittsburgh.

I love the corner of Forbes & Murray . . .

. . . The JCC and its funky Hebrew-numeral clock . . .

. . . Little’s Shoes!  With its fabulous retro-everything!  I mean, they still hire people to hand-paint their sale signs.

S.W. Randalls is a wonderful little toy store.  We are sad that we won’t be around long enough to enter the Lego contest this year.

No trip up Murray is complete without a visit to Dozen Cupcakes.  Man, we are SO ADDICTED to these things!  I love the cute window display . . .

. . . and Jeffrey loves the cute cupcake display.

Kazansky’s is where we go when we need a good Reuben fix.

Oh, there’s too many other favorite places!  Rita’s Italian Ices (love that mango), Games Unlimited (and its curiously eccentric staff), the Tango Café, Aladdin’s (with its sumptuous dessert case and excellent falafel), Forward Lanes (the only bowling alley I know that’s on the second floor of a building), The 61-C (named after a popular bus line), Knit One (keeps me in with the yarn ladies) –oh, I can’t name them all, but I’ll certainly miss them.

Loving & Leaving Pittsburgh: Schenley Park

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One of the great things about Pittsburgh is its long history of eccentric millionaires who donated large swathes of land to the city for parks just to tick of their families.

Thanks, Mary Schenley, for deciding to get even with your dad! Now we all have a great big park to run around in!

The paths were originally meant for horse-drawn carriages to go down, so they are wide and graveled — perfect for strollers.

I absolutely adore this park — we call it our “enchanted forest.”  It’s so lush and green.

The paths and hidden staircases spiral downwards into a series of ravines.  Panther Hollow is at the bottom, where there is a duck pond.  We always like to bring bread for them to eat.

Years ago, there used to be a boating house here, but now the only boats on the pond are toy ones.  Jeffrey likes to make little leaf boats and float clovers on top.

On the other side of the forest is the Bartlett Playground, which is our Playground of Choice.  There are rarely any weird people hanging out in this park, and it’s easy to see the whole area from any of the benches.  Ella and Wimmy are obsessed with the swings.

On the slope that leads to the forest is Wildflower Hill.  A crop of daisies just came into bloom this month.  Jeffrey had fun frolicking about.

Oh, I’ll miss zooming in and around this forest!

Loving & Leaving Pittsburgh: Bruster’s Ice Cream

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On summer evenings (or, as is often the case, spring evenings) we like to walk the couple of blocks it takes to get to our neighborhood ice cream parlor, Bruster’s. Bruster’s is a local chain, and we like it better than the other (many, many) ice cream places in town, for these reasons:

1. Kids under four feet get free baby cones. If you ask, they will even make a “Purple Dinosaur” cone for the little ones. Note the googly candy eyes.

2. Banana Thursdays — on these days, if you bring a banana from home, you can get a banana split for half price. Brian and I like to share these. The splits are different from other places — they use strawberry, pineapple, and fudge toppings. The strawberry topping tastes sparkly, almost as if it’s carbonated. Maybe from having three hundred grams of sugar per ounce, perhaps?

Oh, and the kids can entertain themselves with the banana on the walk there. Here is the classic “banana phone.”

3. The “dirt sundaes” for kids cost less than a one-scoop cone. Jeffrey was good enough to share his dirt with William. Happy baby!

4. The kids’ favorite thing is this little Bruster’s truck. We have yet to actually put money in it to make it go. The kids don’t need money to go for a ride — the imagination makes for the most delicious trip of all.

Loving & Leaving Pittsburgh: In Bloom

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I know one of the things I’ll really miss about Pennsylvania is all of the springtime flowers.  People try to grow flowering trees and bushes in Utah, but there really isn’t enough water for them to really flourish.  So, this spring I made a point of taking snapshots of all my favorite blossoms that I see while driving around town.

Here’s a gorgeous pair of azalea bushes.  They look like one bush growing two shades of flowers:

Down the street from that bush is one of my favorite dogwood trees.  Look how it towers — it reminds me of a Japanese painting:

Schenley Park also has some lovely dogwoods growing wild in the forest.  They remind me of Virginia, where wild dogwood are more proliferous:

There are so many more that I wasn’t able to capture before they faded away (I’m kicking myself that I missed the big tulip tree in north Oakland!).  Oh, well!

Loving & Leaving Pittsburgh: The Duquesne Incline

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I think I had to double-check the spelling of this post’s title about four times.  That’s how you spell “Duquesne,” right?  (For those of you strangers to Pittsburgh, it’s pronounced “doo-KANE.”)

Would you believe that I lived here for nearly seven years before taking a trip up Mt. Washington on the incline?  These would be a set of little red trollies that go up and down the mountainside on a set of tracks.  Yeah, it’s one of those cute touristy things that Pittsburgh is famous for, but it always seemed a little too not-worth-the-time.  It’s almost as easy to just drive up the hill (although it must be known that the inclines, old and touristy though they may be, are still used by some commuters as a way to get into the city and, as such, are maintained as public transporation).

But the charm, good weather, and lovely view really won me over.  I’m sad I haven’t come here more often!

All aboard!

The view going up . . .

. . . and at the top.  That’s Uncle Sven (aka Patrick) with Eleanor.  She has a serious case of hero-worship going on with that guy.

Jeffrey was so enthused by the experience that when we arrived at home he insisted on making his own incline out of Legos.  Brian jumped right on this idea, and here’s what they made.  It really works — all you do is pull the string!

Now He’s Really Square

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Last Monday Brian graduated from medical school, and “officially” recieved his Ph.D. hood, as well.

Hooraaaaayyyyy!

Seven years of graduate school, FINALLY OVER!

On to five more years of training!

The graduation ceremony went off with only a few hitches. My camera was pretty lousy at taking photos from the back of the Carnegie Music Hall, so this is the only one of the ceremony that turned out. He’s just recieved his medical hood, which is forest green. The deans were all clad in green as well, making them look like a bunch of leprechauns.

The only other hitch was that William threw up all over his grandfather ten minutes before the ceremony was about to start. I’m not talking about a spit-up — that I can handle — but a full-scale gastro-instestinal assault. Brian’s dad, who fathered six children, took it all in stride.

In fact, he was even good enough to take this picture of us in the lobby afterwards. Jeffrey opted to attend preschool that morning instead of coming to the ceremony (smart kid; it would have been painful for him), in case you’re wondering.  Note the double-hood action on Brian’s shoulders!!

So, Brian is now Dr. Brian, M.D./Ph.D. A Doctor-Doctor, or as I call it, a Doctor Squared. Har har har. Nerd Jokes: can they be any funnier?

The medical school is big on the whole pomp-and-circumstance thing. (Except that they didn’t actually play “Pomp and Circumstance” during the graduation ceremony.) Graduation is a whole-weekend affair. It starts with a big barbeque on Saturday (ribs! ribs! ribs! And we got to take home a gigantic caramel-apple pie!) followed up by Scope & Scalpel in the evenings.

“Scope & Scalpel” is a comedy show put on by the graduating medical school class, making fun of the whole gruelling four-year training process. It’s been a Pitt tradition since the ’50s, and as far as I know, it’s something that is unique to this school. It’s quite the lavish affair, considering that it’s put together by fourth-year medical students, who are pretty busy people.

There are costumes, elaborate dance numbers, and a full orchestra. People collect the posters. And there’s lots of bathroom humor. The shows’ titles usually involve horrible puns — this year’s show was called “The Full Montefiore.” “Montefiore” is the name of one of the hospitals in town. Past shows have titles like “Back to the Suture,” “Thoracic Park,” “Apolyps 13,” and “Crouching Patient, Hidden Finger.”

To tell the truth, most of the jokes fell kinda flat, or were in-jokes that neither I nor Brian got (such as a love song written to Tony Danza). But there was one short film shown that pretty much stole the show. Here it is. . . um, I’ll just say that it’s probably rated PG-13. It’s full of all the thoughts medical students have during their third year of med school, but do not say out loud.

I laughed so hard I cried.  Sobbed.  It was that funny.

For those of you who do watch it, here’s a bit of vocabulary to help you along:

  • WPIC: Western Psychiatric hospital
  • Fecolalia: talking about feces all the time (we think?  Brian’s already packed the medical dictionary, so we couldn’t look this up)
  • Neologism: nonsense word or word used incorrectly; sign of schizophrenia
  • Celiac: the first major artery that branches off the aorta after it passes through the diaphragm
  • Rounding: walking “round” the hospital, waking up patients and asking them about their stools.  Repeat this an infinite amount of times, and you have an internal medicine rotation (aka “medicine rotation”).
  • Differential: list of possible diagnoses that you come up with after examining a patient
  • Retracting: tedious process of holding back skin/fat during surgery; usually the med student’s job
  • Magee: the women’s hospital in Pittsburgh; med students do their OB/GYN rotations there.  This section of the video was filmed at the Magee ballpark in Greenfield.
  • “Next time I think I’ll put a cover on my shoe”: Childbirth is messy.  Some OBs wear face shields.
  • Peds: pediatrics
  • H&P: history and physical
  • “Circle of Bruce” : referring to the Circle of Willis, the circle of arteries inside your brain.