keys and other excitement

The Adam DeClercq family of four (because we count the dog) made our first big road trip.  We left at o-dark-thirty to avoid LA traffic (the true bane of our So Cal existence) and to get a couple of good hours of driving under our tires before we stopped to feed Garrett.  It worked like a charm.  We had decided that we would stop when we needed for as long as we needed and just not think about how fast we used to be able to make this drive. 
Our first big drive was virtually painless... minus one major incident at a gas station somewhere in central California.  I took Garrett inside for a quick diaper change while Adam gassed up the car.  He also thought it would be a good time to give Bobby a little drink.  So, he walked around the car and in those 2 seconds, Bobby jumped on the electric door locks, thereby sealing him in and us out.  Yep, the dog locked us out of the car.  Away from both cell phones and both sets of keys.  Because who has the foresight to grab their keys as they walk around the car... since you never know, that dog might lock the doors?
When I walked out of the bathroom, Adam was in a near panic, standing over the passenger window that was providentially cracked an inch (another point in the fresh air vs air conditioning argument).  When he told me what happened, I just laughed out loud.  What else can you do? 
We agreed to try and get his keys ourselves before calling a locksmith.  His keys were nonchalantly lying on the center console.  Adam scavenged a stick and very carefully maneuvered it through his key ring.  Just as he was about to oh-so-carefully lift the keys, he lost his grip on the stick.  Now, the dog, cell phones, keys and stick were all locked in the car.
He went to find a new stick.  He came back with a short stumpy twig, took one look at the window and threw the stick down in dismay, screaming "STUPID STICK" like it was the stick's fault.  The next stick was of appropriate girth and length.  He was able to lift the old stick still threaded through the keys back up to the window with the new stick.  To say we cheered and jumped up and down when Adam snatched his keys through the window would be an understatement. 
Luckily the remainder of the driving was much less eventful.

Videos of a cutie

We know, we know.  We've got a lot to blog about, but we really wanted to give you some of the good stuff.

Here is the first:

Here is the second:

Quintessential Postmodern Lit

The other night I slapped my book closed, flung the bedroom door open and confronted my wife as to why she let me finish my book.  She had previously read it and therefore had the responsibility to warn me, to stop me from finishing.  Should she have stopped me because it was bad?  No.  She should have stopped me because it was so darn conflicting that I can't give any kind of recommendation either way!  And that is terribly frustrating. 

The book in question is Yann Martel's new novel Beatrice and Virgil.  Laura and I were both quite excited about this because we were absolutely enraptured by Martel's Life of Pi.  If you ask either of us for a book recommendation we will almost certainly include Life of Pi in our list.  That book was a masterful tale of survival told with visionary creativity.  It was unique and captivating; it thrilled the imagination.  And so we both greatly looked forward to the release of Beatrice and Virgil. 

The basic plot is this: Henry is a successful novelist who fails at writing a second book.  His first novel had animals as the main players.  His second novel was about the holocaust.  After rejection from his publisher, he walks away from writing, and he and his wife move away and live off his royalties.  But Henry is a polite fellow, and so responds to all his fan mail.  One day Henry receives a very puzzling letter, a short story and a request for writing help.  Normally Henry would decline, but he was very intrigued by the story and it so happened that the fan lived in the same city Henry had just moved to.  And this fan calls himself Henry. 

Henry, the fan, is a taxidermist.  He has a shop not far from Henry's home- Henry, the author.  So the author goes to visit the taxidermist and is bewitched by the skillful creations of this taxidermist.  The taxidermist has written a play whose characters are animals, a donkey named Beatrice and a howler monkey named Virgil.  And the taxidermist needs help.

If you haven't picked up on the postmodernist threads yet, then allow me to elaborate.  From the very beginning of B & V, it felt like Martel was laughing at his reader, if only through his Henry.  At first, Yann Martel, an author of a wildly successful book starring animals is indistinguishable from his main character, Henry.  Henry is an author.  He wrote an impressively successful novel.  The novel had animals as major players.  Henry was called upon to help Henry.  Henry is a taxidermist who is also an author.  He wrote a play.  His play uses animals as the major players.  And there you have it, postmodern lit; the blurring, no, swirling of fiction and real life until they seem interchangeable.  Though, this book takes the swirling to levels I've never read before.  In some ways, this was unique, fun, and enjoyable.  In many ways it was tedious, confusing, and seemingly stupid. 

To make it worse, the first 20 or so pages seemed like they were written as a mocking apology from Martel to his reader (even if under the guise of Henry): Yes, (in a snooty tone) I'm ridiculously successful, handsomely rich, will never have to work another day because my book is so popular, and oh, I am so tired of being recognized on the streets, everyone wants to tell me how great my book is.  I know how great it is.

The rest of the plot bounces between Henry's new life and working with the taxidermist on the play.  Working isn't the right word.  They never actually work on it.  The taxidermist simply reads disjointed parts to Henry.  These parts of the play are included for us, the real world reader, but as I said , are disjointed.  The taxidermist does not seem to read his passages in any kind of order.  Beatrice and Virgil talk about a pear.  Then they talk about whether they should leave or not.  (For a while, it felt very much like the play Waiting for Godot, but in a bad way.)  It is all very strange, and though it is a very quick read, it was hard work to motivate myself to actually finish it.  When I did sit down to read I flew through the pages.  It was  the between readings where it was easy to think about giving up.  I think I'm glad I didn't. 

I don't want to give away too much about the end because really it is a bit of a surprise ending.  What is surprising is how Martel is able to pull together all the plot pieces in a way that made sense.  I found this surprise to be satisfying enough.  And there were a few parts in the end that almost brought me to tears.  And it is because of the ending that I am stumped on forming an opinion.  For a majority of this book, I was left confused, unsure what the point was, if there even was a point, and why I cared about the point.  But I found the ending to be understandable, even impressive, if not satisfying.  But books are journeys and I'm not entirely sure that this journey is worth it. 

One last comment about this book's postmodern workings.  In the end, Martel, the author writes two books.  One is fiction, one is non-fiction, just like Henry's failed second book.  And I enjoyed the complexity that Martel's final "fiction story"/game (if you read it you'll understand) and how it lent itself to the postmodern framework. 

Beatrice and Virgil is 197 pages.

Up next is Stephen King's brick of a book Under the Dome, weighing in at 1070 pages.

baby friends

Bryce (6 wks) and Garrett (3 mos)

if only we had thought to put them in matching onesies...

Happy America Day!

We celebrated the 4th of July with a road trip to Fresno to see Andrew, Danica, and baby Bryce. 
We also celebrated with red, white, and blue cupcakes.  (I may be in a cupcake phase right now)
And 5 different patriotic outfits on the baby.  It was one of those of days.

Outfit #3

Hat courtesy of Shelly.  To protect Garrett's balding head!

Outfit #4

1, 2, 3

one

two

three months old!

in a stormy mood

I have been pining for Germany. 

For the rolling hills, the blumen fields, the cherry trees, and the afternoon thunderstorms. 
The other afternoon, the mood was perfect for a good thunderstorm.  The skies were grey and moody, the air was warm and a little damp, and we were all home with nothing to do. 

I sat in Garrett's room and I was sure I heard the pitter patter of rain on the roof.  But it was just the ceiling fan clicking with each rotation.  Now that I know that the fan sounds like rain, I know not to jump up and look out the window expecting to see rain.  Because every time I look, I just see our car in the driveway bespeckled from the sprinkler and the man across the street in his yard with his dogs.  He is literally ALWAYS outside with those dogs.  I wonder how his wife feels about it.  I digress.

I have been looking at our pictures of beautiful Deutshland and it only makes the pining worse. 
What I wouldn't give to hike from Riedlingen to Holzen through the forest and the grape vines. 
Or to walk into Kandern, through the golf course to buy groceries or maybe just ice cream. 
Or to make our way along the winding two lane roads on a drive to nowhere with flowering trees waving at us from either side of the lane. 
Or a salad from funfschilling sitting at a community table with strangers clamoring away in Deutsch all around me. 

Instead, I look at the pictures and dream of a life that doesn't involve Anaheim, endless freeways, strip malls, and a general sense of concrete at every turn.  The rush of Southern California is disenchanting. 
I long for an evening where there are no car alarms, blaring stereos from cars driving entirely too fast on our residential road or rowdy neighbor kids...
just the blissful hum of rain on the windows and the rumble of distant thunder.