The Curtis Clan - Fall 2010
Fall Equinox to Winter Solstice
Cate at 6 ½
As our youngest reached another half year waypoint, she hit a couple of personnel milestones. Just before the equinox, Cate lost her first tooth. She had been worried that it would never happen to her despite her parents attempts at comforting assurances that it would. The Tooth Fairy brought a gold dollar coin, just as Jane has received. We’re hoping Cate's adult teeth come in as straight as the baby ones which looked great before they started falling out. Given that both her parents had teeth removed to pull the rest back in alignment, we are not betting on it though. Jane definitely has some orthodontic work coming in her future. The hazards of English blood…
The second major thing was that Cate got glasses roughly a month after her sister’s. We were inclined to dismiss her complaints about not seeing well enough to just wanting them as a fashion accessory. This conclusion was based in part on her getting glasses for American Girl Doll in Chicago and expressing a desire to buy some at the Dollar Store on one of her allowance spending trips. The doctor was hip to this bias and determined that while her far sighted vision is fine, she was having issues focusing close up (opposite of the rest of the clan), so she got her wish. She only needs them for reading and close in desk-work and will conceivably grow out of them. However, for now the whole clan is be speckled.
| Cate's 1st lost tooth |
Cate's 1st glasses |
|
|
On personality notes, she remains very strong willed. Unfortunately much of her resoluteness is misguided refusal to keep her stuff and self tidy. Typically, she scatters her shoes and socks randomly around the house or refuses to clean out the dirt under her fingernails, much to her parent’s frustration. Some of it is only a phase (we hope) but the foreshadowing of arguments as a teenager is disturbing.
Cate’s also made the habit of pretending she’s a cat and answering “Meow” to most questions while she’s pretending. Her parents find the meowing a bit irritating, which appears to encourage her all the more. Why a cat? Probably a function of her Dad calling her Cat Cate and her mother’s unhidden disdain for catsafter Brazil’s welcome home urination on her after Jane was born. Pets aren’t always keen on babies coming into the mix.
When Cate “grows up” her current career ambition is to be a Fashion Designer as evidenced by her daily sketches of dresses or taking bubble wrap and fashioning a dress (Lady Gaga watch out). An early assignment in 1st grade had her complete a My Community fill-in the blank essay that said “Our community has workers to help us. This community helper is a fashin dsinr. Fashin dsinr help our community by maceing close.” And yes it bothers both parents that emphasizing spelling is soooo last century ins schools today.
|
Cate's Dream Career circa 1st grade
|
|
WGCS Grandparent’s Day
The girl’s school had another day where in the afternoon the kid’s grandparents could come and visit for a few hours. There was a carnival theme and Gramy and Nana had a lovely time with them.
|
Gramy Cate Nana and Jane in the WGCS courtyard
|
|
Comparing our activities this fall with the years past, we could almost use the same text and just change the pictures, as many of the routines and events have become ritual. While, there’s comfort in shared family traditions, we don’t want to be weighed down by them either and we sought ways to keep them fresh.
Annual Maramec Spring Camping Trip
|
Curti at Merimaec Springs
|
|
As always, the September / October change saw us celebrating the end of the government’s fiscal year and Cate’s half birthday with our annual camping trip to Maramec Spring. We picked the girls up early from school Friday with our van load of stuff full of gear to “rough it.” We met up with Uncle Charlie, JoAnne, her granddaughter Peyton, and the Hammond boys at our favorite camping sites with all arriving at about the same time after lunch on Friday. Later that afternoon we made the 2 mile kayak float back to the campground from the Highway 8 Bridge as we’ve done with the girls regularly since spring 2006. That’s about all they or the paddlers could handle with them wedged in the front of the cockpit of the one person kayak. Later Bob, Elisabeth, Bill, Carol and Charlie’s neighbor Pat joined us in this annual revelry.
|
Cate and Jane at Merimaec Springs
|
|
This year on Saturday instead of making a trip to Heinrichhaus Winery, we rented a canoe and joined the rest of the gang on the float trip to Scott’s Ford. Bethany had lingering misgivings about going in a canoe versus the much more stable kayaks, recalling all too well the trauma of nearly impaling herself on an overturned tree snag the first time out with Randy and a resultant hospital visit, exactly 10 years ago. Anyway the four Curti got a canoe (the river was too low for a rubber raft to work well in that stretch of river). At first it was a bit overcast and chilly with plenty of snags to challenge us in the narrows, but after lunch, the sun popped out, the spirits rose and it was a lovely trip with all of us staying dry (more or less).
|
Curtis paddlers
|
|
The campfires each night were topped off with burning large, hollow logs. Saturday night’s log was particularly eventful as Bill had strapped two together, forming a five foot high tube. It didn’t last but a half an hour but the pyrotechnics of tossing in soda and beer boxes was fabulous.
|
Hollow log campfire
|
|
|
Dad and Jane
|
|
On her 72nd Birthday we took Nana and the Curtis Clan out to eat and came back to our house to enjoy a Dairy Queen ice cream cake.
|
Jane and Cate help Nana with the birthday candle chores
|
|
Visit to Grant's Farm
With a Groupon set to expire spurring us forth, on a Sunday morning as the leaves were turning, we made a trip to Grant’s Farm. It was pleasant but tinged with a melancholy and ennui not present before. We haven’t gone with the girls that many times before (twice?) but the tram ride around the park and feeding the goats and lamas didn’t have the sparkle of the first times. The choices of complimentary beverages were down to six from past when all of the Anheuser-Busch products were available, allowing one to try something new without having to buy a six pack. Perhaps it was the pall of the Inbev takeover the previous year and the announcement that the Busch family was looking for the National Park Service to take over the land and incorporate it into the adjacent Ulysses S. Grant Historic Site. If that happens, it seems unlikely that the roadside zoo portions would remain and the rite of passage for St. Louis area kids of having their clothing munched on by goats would be gone. It’s clear that Gussie Busch was primarily responsible for all the love the community has had for the family (the Clydesdales, Cardinals, Grants Farm, the generous jobs with complementary cases of beer regularly). The effects are still withering away two decades after his death.
|
At Grants Farm
|
|
California or Bust
On Tuesday 19 October we took the girls out of school for a week (bad parenting trait #13) for a week long family vacation that we didn’t get around to in the summer. The scheduling was juggled to avoid missing Bethany’s PTO meeting and the girls’ PSR (Parish School of Religion) schedule, as Jane prepared to go to her first Reconciliation (confession) in November. For once Randy’s work wasn’t pushing the timing and location (after all that was the main reason the vacation didn’t happen in the summer). We had to listen to weeks of Jane gripping about how she was missing her class’s apple picking field trip and she didn’t want to go (from the kid who doesn’t even like apples). Nevertheless everyone was cheerful to begin the eleven and a half hour journey from our house at 7 am (Central Time) to Grandpa and Gaye’s place in Monterrey at 4:30 (Pacific Time).
|
Bethany reading to the girls waiting to board (check out the comfy chairs outside the Southwest gates)
|
|
Southwest plied us with snacks and three beverage services on the nearly 4 hour leg to LA. Between that, the nicest gates at Lambert and the free baggage service, SWA is probably the most pleasant experience in the air currently among the commercial US carriers. This is a function of them upping their game a bit but mostly to the rest of the airlines falling back to annoying.
After landing in Oakland, we picked out a rusty-orange Jeep Compass from the mid-size choices and made a quick stop at the In-Out Burger for a bite to eat before heading to Monterrey. The cholesterol-free fried French fries were mediocre but the burgers were excellent. We arrived at Grandpa and Gaye’s apartment with enough daylight for the girls to get out some wiggles on the playground across the street. The park gave the girls a great deal of pleasure and a chance to expend some energy. Kids’ playground equipment is such a simple pleasure that appears to give them as much pleasure as the pricier museum and was one of the girl’s favorite activities in California. Cate enjoyed climb across the top and Jane got the knack of crossing the monkey bars with only her hands.
|
The Curti with their Jeep Compass
|
|
On Wednesday we got up and made the trek down the hill to the Monterrey Aquarium. In addition to the justly famous Jellyfish exhibits, they had added a special seahorse one that was equally well done. The girl’s favorite part was the Splash Zone where the got to pet starfish, sea cucumber, sea urchins etc.
|
Or would you like to pet on a star?
|
|
That afternoon while Gaye and Bethany visited the Mission in Carmel, Grandpa, Randy and the girls visited the Denise the Menace Park in downtown Monterrey. Established in 1954, shortly after local Hank Ketchum’s cartoon hit big, it was a very large scale kid’s playground that has been upgraded over the years but included number of older and unique items. The most fun piece of playground equipment to climb on was the steam engine donated by the Southern Pacific half a century ago with Randy enjoying it nearly as much as the girls. It reminded him of the St. Louis Transportation Museum in the 1960s, which was a lot more fun when you could crawl all over equipment before they became a bit more serious about conserving it.
|
Dad and the girls playing on a steam engine
|
|
Thursday morning we made a return visit to the aquarium to finish seeing the exhibits and revisiting the ones we liked the most. That afternoon the guys help the girls each carve a pumpkin. Actually the girls did the design with Dad and Grandpa wielding the knives.
|
Jane and Cate with Grandpa Curtis
|
|
|
Group Picture
|
|
It was a real nice time and Grandpa and Gaye were exquisite hosts. However, following the paradigm that guests like fish begin to stink after three days, we said our goodbyes on Friday morning and headed north through San Francisco to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and visit the Sequoia redwoods in Muir Woods just to the north in Marin County. It was a rainy foggy day, so we didn’t walk too far along the bridge, when we stopped.
|
A foggy day isn SF town
|
|
At Muir Woods, the constant drizzle wasn’t too big of a deal under the canopy of trees. The kids energy took away some of the reverential awe of the place but it’s still the most accessible place to see such majestic trees.
|
Jane and Cate at Muir Woods
|
|
Given the daily parking fees for the hotels in San Francisco (on the order of $50), we decided that the Courtyard Emeryville would do just fine, especially since commuting across the Bay Bridge on the weekend was no hassle. The hotel was a couple blocks from the IKEA, which somewhat to our surprise we didn’t visit (no way to bring home our booty, if we did). Jake, Randy’s college roommate, joined us for dinner at the Emeryville Public Market, which offers a smorgasbord of 20 different ethnic offerings. The five of us chose four different places to eat from. Very similar to Baltimore’s Lexington Market only with a far more affluent clientele then Baltimore’s inner city.
On Saturday we got up and zipped across the Bay Bridge (no traffic at 9 am on Saturday) to visit and shop in Chinatown. It was the place the girls most wanted to visit on the trip, no doubt in part being inspired by one of their best friends Li being Chinese. After buying small souvenirs, they insisted on making the trip down the crooked section of Lombard Street. Having just watched “What’s Up Doc?” (One of Randy’s favorite movies of all time) a couple weeks before, certainly helped to keep it fresh in their minds, though they claimed to remember if from before. At Fisherman’s Warf, we purchased Jane a new fleece with the SF logo, having outgrown the last one, as well as the 4 before that one too (goofy family tradition). The rain held off until we met up with our friends Jake and his fiancée Andrea for lunch, followed by an outing to the Zeum Digital Workshop. The Zeum is an interactive kid’s museum where you can make green screen videos, stop animation and other digital movie tricks. Think of it as a George Lucas’s ILM for the grade school sect. Worn out, we headed back to the hotel, and got food to eat in the room as we watched TV and drifted off to sleep.
|
Chinatown
|
|
The next day we hit the Exploratorium in the Palace of Fine Arts with Jake and Andrea while it stormed outside. It’s a fantastic hand’s on science museum with an emphasis on the principals of physics that certainly is the leader in such things. We were a bit concerned that it might be over the girls head but not at all. It appeared that every group there had young kids with them (a function of the rain?). Afterward about 3-4 hours of playing, hunger took over and we meet up with Jon/Pooky (Randy’s other college roommate) for dinner and a visit to his apartment and ice cream. Conversation around the table made it seem like old times.
|
Walk softly and carry a BIG spoon
|
|
|
Three cups of tea or a Visit with two Johns
|
|
We left Oakland before dawn on Monday, which got us home early enough to attack the leaves dumped in the backyard by our largest oak tree.
|
Happiness is slidding into a pile of leaves
|
|
Innsbrook
The Hammonds invited the old volleyball gang, plus some, out to their place at Innsboork for their annual wine and garlic festival. The foliage was great and the kids had a wonderful time trying out the different boats (paddle, kayak and canoe) in the safety of the placid lake. At night, Todd pulled out his telescope and showed them Jupiter and several of its moons, which pleased the girls quite a bit. You’re never quite the same after seeing the moons of Jupiter.
Halloween
For two months leading up to Halloween, Cate examined the various costume catalogues that came in the mail for inspiration. Early on she settled on Strawberry Shortcake for unclear reasons. We figured it would pass but finally ordered her the costume to appease her and save Bethany the hours of late night aggravation of sewing a costume that ends up costing more in supplies than just buying it. However the Shortcake costume came back several sizes too small. Returning it wasn’t a problem but there wasn’t going to be a costume that fit her. Fortunately we hadn’t bought the $15 pink wig to complete the costume that Cate wanted as well. For a few days, she was leaning toward being a witch (a very easy costume) and the choice seemed firm with a purple hair wig from the $ Deal store. However, additional review of the catalogues again with Nana diverted her to choosing to be a Gypsy, despite Cate not having a clue about what a gypsy was when Nana pointed it out in the catalogue. We figured the promise of wearing earrings, scarves and multiple rings is what appealed to her. Bethany found some fabric to drape around which required no sewing eliminating the 2 in the morning session to complete a costume. We encouraged Cate to take the Magic 8-Ball along with her instead of telling a riddle as her trick, and provide a fake fortune: “Eenie-Meenie, Chillie Beanie, the spirits are about to speak.” That bit of showmanship was beyond her first grade confidence level to pull off and she went with a standard monster riddle: “What is a vampire’s least favorite meal? A Stake.”
|
Kitt Kitridge and Gypsey Cate
|
|
Jane decided to be Kitt Kittredge of the American Girl Doll fame, with the fame part being arguable. Her costume as a spunky, depression era girl with dreams of being a reporter was pretty good based on the movie but unfortunately that’s a pretty narrow demographic. She had a name tag stating Kitt Kittredge, but no one read it, so she had to tell everyone who she was, and then explain it to nearly everyone what that meant. She was very frustrated by it. Her riddle was the hackneyed but very appropriate “What is black and white and red all over?” "The newspaper".
|
Bethany escroting the girls Trick or Treating
|
|
|
Randy - Fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way
|
|
In the weeks that followed, the girls worked through their bags of candy, which were much larger than in the past having had the stamina to visit more houses this year. Long ago, both girls became hip not to trust Dad’s advice about which candy they wouldn’t like, thus ending his annual Baby Ruth take. Still on occasion he would sneak a chocolate bar or two when he thought he could get away with it. By early December, Jane still had a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and a Kit Kat in her bag. Figuring if she didn’t like them enough to have eaten them in 5 weeks, she wouldn’t miss them at all, citing to himself the “Daddy tax” Wrong! She was saving the “best for last”. She wrote a scathing message on the black board regarding the candy crime (see below). She was completely right and Dad had to make reparations and bribe her off with soda for dinner.
|
Crime and Punnishment
|
|
The next day was All Saints Day (remember there is a religious reason behind Halloween). As is common in the Catholic Church, the kids were encouraged to dress up as a Saint to attend All Saint’s Mass. You can’t beat two costume days in a row, as Bethany crafted up some nice costumes for the girls: Jane chose Ste. Jane Frances de Chantal and Cate chose Ste. Catherine Labouré, in the “flying nun” order. Father Brown said they looked so holy!
|
Saint Jane and Saint Catherine
|
|
Veterans Day
Randy and his pal Todd took advantage of the holiday day off to visit their High School Physics teacher Mr. Wojak, thirty years after being his Favorite and Best Students (a distinction he proclaimed for nearly all his students when in his immediate presence). We brought him lunch and regaled his class with tales of our careers and how the Ever Powerful hand of Physics made it all possible. Still teaching at age of 72 with no intention of retiring, it was great to see how little his classroom had changed. It was fun to hear him recall to his incredulous students how our class celebrated his birthday by painting an Einstein mural on the wall and smoking cigars in class. No smoking was not allowed IN class than, even though it was a constant in the high school’s courtyard, a practice that was banned decades ago. Different times.
|
Mr. Wojak with his Favorite and Best Students
|
|
Bethany helped organize the annual block party that weekend. It was pretty cold but with a fire pit and the chili cook-off it was fairly pleasant. The girls enjoyed the balloon art of our neighbor Silly Jilly.
|
Tuxedo Butterflies
|
|
It was about this time that Cate lost her glasses. The term “lost” should be place in proper context in that Cate has been loosing or rather misplacing or hiding things on a daily basis most of her life. Typically it was footwear with the left and right items rarely being in the same spot. Her experienced parents tried to remain relatively calm figuring the glasses would turn up in a day or so once she cleaned up the omni-present mess in her room. Cate’s appearance of unconcern of the missing critical and expensive item and lack of enthusiasm to search for them, combined with the number of days missing turning into weeks missing had an effect on our “calm”. There was an ever ratcheting up in lost privileges in an attempt to spark her to action to no avail. After three weeks, we figured that we probably needed to replace them despite our conviction that they would suddenly appear. Within a pending birthday sleep over for a classmate hanging in balance, Cate extracted from Bethany the promise that if she found her glasses that she’d be guaranteed going to the party the next day. And magically within in 5 minutes she found them. Cate had set them on top of the cookbooks on a shelf knee high to the adults, where they had been out of sight (tells you how often we use cookbooks around here). We were so relieved to have the glasses back that we choose to overlook Cate’s obvious manipulation of her mother to get what she wanted BEFORE revealing to her that she already found them. Well played but we’re certain this is foreshadowing for future weaseling on her part.
Thanksgiving
Cate had a project where she used the letters in the word “Thanksgiving” to write out phrases that the holiday made them think of. Most were innocuous but for N, she wrote “Not Mad” which made us snicker. For G, she wrote something that appeared to be “Giving it axe”, which kind of disturbed us until the teacher decoded her 1st grade scrawl to the “Giving Thanks”, causing a sigh of relief.
Having not made a trip out to Pittsburgh in some time, we decided to take Aunt Katie up on her offer to come and visit them over Thanksgiving. We left at the crack of dawn (6 am) Wednesday, having the girls skip school (again). We made our customary lunch stop at Exit 29 in Ohio for Skyline Chili with Jane and Cate becoming converts too. We arrived at our hotel smack dab in the middle of the greater Pittsburgh strip mall shopping Hell, making it the local Mecca for Black Friday deals, early enough that night to have dinner with Katie and Don.
It was a lazy Thursday with little responsibility other than visiting with Katie and Don and making green bean casserole before leaving in the afternoon for Thanksgiving Dinner at Don’s sister Barb’s (and Steven Stemmler) house. We joined the rest of Don’s family there: his Mom, Bird, brother Ralph, son Rob and nephew Avery (formerly AJ). It was a lovely meal and time.
|
Pittsburgh Thanksgiving
|
|
Earlier in the day while flipping through the ads, Randy day dreamily mentioned that one of the sporting goods stores had kayaks half off on Friday, to which Katie proffered “Do you want a canoe?” Randy sheepishly replied “Actually, that’s what I’m really looking for.” He’d been covertly pricing them on Craig’s List for the last year or more and was trying to figure out how to convince Bethany the family really needed one (the girls are a bit too young to do a half day float by themselves and are getting too big to comfortably fit in a kayak for more than a hour with an adult). As it turns out, Don had a 15 foot plastic Coleman that he hadn’t used since 1982 based on the PA state license sticker on the side. He was more than happy to find it a happy home for it besides the wooded area in his sister’s back yard. After a bit of hosing and scrubbing, we hoisted it on top of the Sienna and brought it home much to Bethany’s chagrin. She really couldn’t say NO despite her distaste for the proverbial “Divorce Boats” after being nearly impaled by a snag in one the first year of their courtship. The first hour on the highway home was nerve racking as there were disturbing noises coming from the top of the van sounding like the thing was going to fly off at any moment. Anxiety filled the car until we determined it was only the flapping of the cushioning rags between the canoe and the roof rack. Once they were duct tapped down, the noise disappeared and all were greatly relieved. We made it back to St. Louis early enough on Saturday night to get join the rest of the Sages for Sage Pizza night and to watch the Notre Dame game. Guess which of the two activities was pushing us onward?
|
Randy, Don and Canoe
|
|
December
The first weekend in the month, we paid a visit to the historic Campbell House Museum (another Groupon set to expire), the sole remnant of the formally fashionable Lucas Place neighborhood in circa 1850 St. Louis. The area is now marked by YMCA, Reverend Larry Rice ministries and a number of lofts condos in the garment district warehouses that had replaced the other homes. It is particularly prized in that most of the original furnishings and decorations remain from the period. An underappreciated treasure.
|
The girls and Li at the Campbell House decorated for Christmas
|
|
Jane’s teacher Mrs. Cook got a grant to develop and promote movement into each lesson in order to make it more interesting for the kids, while preventing class disruptions. Part of the program is that all the chairs in 2nd grade have been replaced with large balls or T-stools. Jane’s class and the school’s "Students on the Move" program were featured on KSDK “Show Me St. Louis” on 7 December. Jane is visible by herself and with her hand in the air to answer a question (yes she’s a bit of a spring butt). After watching the segment that had been filmed two months earlier, Jane commented that she didn’t want to sign autographs before realizing that all her friends that would ask were also on the show.
http://www.ksdk.com/life/programming/local/showme/story.aspx?storyid=231677&catid=78
| Jane on TV |
With her hand up to give the answer |
|
|
The second weekend in December was the first snow of the year coupled with an arctic cold snap. Not enough to build snowmen or forts (or cause significant hassles) but enough to make it look pretty and the family was pleased to see it. The morning lows of 5 degree made the prospect of Florida sound good though. The cold snap encouraged us to be expedicious in selecting a tree, as the first one we pulled seemed terrific. We brought it home and took some pictures to finish off the annual Christmas card collage.
| Cate and Lilly |
Bethany and Maddie |
|
|
|
2010 Curtis Christmas Card
|
|
The “Holidays” officially started for us on Friday 17 December with the girl’s last day of school and Randy’s last day of work. That Sunday was Jane and Cate’s Piano Recital (Cate joined her sister in weekly piano lessons this fall). We spent an hour and half waiting to hear their few minutes of performance. Jane played “Joy to the World”. Cate play “Deck the Halls”, which was the third version of the same among the 34 acts but we liked hers best. They followed the playing with a duet of them singing “Winter Wonderland”. No Julliard prodigies but both did fairly well.
| The Curtis Sisters sing Winter Wonderland |
Family photo after the recital |
|
|
RBJC Curtis Family Front Page