Blowing & Drifting

Uh, wow. Big honking news! Holiday Gift-Buying for all the Moms You Know (Including Yourself) Faithful readers! In just a few short weeks, in mid-December (exact date to be determined; I will update you!), my first book will be released by Booktrope Publishing. (OMG! Insert screaming and jumping up and down here.) A comprehensive handbook [...]

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Vivi woves lerdplay. She and I are the only people in the house who don’t think toying with words is pun-ishment. Her specialty, though, is coining and using nonsense words, the latest and perhaps greatest of which is “baba,” as in Baba? Beebee baba. This muffin is so baba! Daddy! I’m baba to see you! [...]

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We drove to Rochester today to see friends there. The drive down had wind, the driving around town had wind and sleet, and the drive back home had wind and the dreaded “wintry mix” of rain and snow, at dusk, in fairly heavy traffic. This is Julia’s response:

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Skiers are supposed to fetishize their skis, but I love my ski boots as much or more than my skis. No matter which skis I’m on, I’m wearing these beauties. But today I put them away for the off-season. I hope I can get them back out around Thanksgiving…

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Yesterday I sat for the final exam for the “Jazz History” course I’ve been taking this term, a course taught by Steve Kelly, who is about to retire after a long, distinguished career at Carleton. I took the course because I wanted to learn more about the history of jazz, a musical style that I [...]

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The change to daylight saving time snuck up on me, so I didn’t have time to get too worried about the effects of the time change on the girls’ sleeping. And for the first time since Julia was born, the change didn’t involve unpleasantness: the girls went to bed early and exhausted on Saturday night, [...]

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We talk more about fairies at our house. Here are three, as drawn by Julia last weekend from three very tiny dolls:

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Let’s go to the video. 33 Seconds of Sledding from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.

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Sunday afternoon, the girls riffed on a Tinkerbell movie and a play that they had just seen to put on a “play” for Shannon and me. They prepared literally all morning, eventually creating elaborate paper costumes that changed each of them into fairies. They also handed out tickets. Here are mine, created by Julia: The [...]

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As told, apropos of nothing, on Tuesday morning: Once upon a time there was a handsome daddy. He lived with his two beautiful daughters in a humble cottage in the woods. One day, they heard a noise outside. “What?” they said and went to look. There was nothing there. Then they heard a noise again. [...]

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In late January, I read an article in Outside magazine about various relatively easy ways to improve your overall health – get more sleep, exercise more frequently, improve your memory, and so on. One of the items in the article described a straightforward way to cut down or eliminate caffeine consumption. This struck a chord. [...]

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The nordic skiing world championship in Oslo are well under way now, with five great races down. Even better (after lackluster crowds at the 2009 and 2007 worlds), the Norwegians are turning out in force: 70,000 turned up on Sunday to watch one of the premiere events, which was won by Norwegian Petter Northug: The [...]

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This morning Vivi asked me to play some less-than-appealing game or activity with her. I can’t even remember what it was, mostly because when she saw I wasn’t exactly into it, she smiled sweetly and said, “Oh, Daddy, I so want to do it with you because you are so, so handsome. You are the [...]

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On Wednesday, the 2011 Nordic Ski World Championships begin in Oslo, Norway – the city that almost literally invented nordic skiing, and the country that still dominates international elite cross-country skiing. I’ve been eagerly anticipating the Oslo Worlds since Oslo was named as host a few years ago, and now that they’re (almost) here, I’m [...]

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Getting dressed for skiing tonight, I accidentally tore the cuff off my favorite pair of ”baselayer bottoms,” Old Red. (Yes, I called them that – but only in my head.) Old Red was real “long underwear.” I got them in 1994, when my parents, in what must have been a huge splurge, gave them to me as [...]

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