Urban Organica

kid's travel itinerary

My mom & pops took their RV to Baja for 27 days.  Before she left she gave the boys felt storyboards that she picked up at Lakeshore Learning Supplies.  (This link is for a whole set, I'd call for individual boards) Free's was a sweet version of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Which, for a 3 year-old, is the perfect 1-week calendar.  Do you know this story?  "On Wednesday, he ate through 3 strawberries..."

For True she got a blank board, then made a bunch of little felt images to  match her itinerary!  He labeled the months & dates.  She included maps from the internet, & made a calendar with pictures for us to follow along each day.  I wish I had been more organized to add food, music & stories last month, but I suppose we can do that with her when she shows us the slideshow...

hip hop buddha

Our best friend made us a hip hop buddha.  It has Afro Puffs. Notice the slight smile. The indentation under the chin where it's hands come together in a secret prayer.  The humility of it's bowed posture.  The tuck in front of it's neck.  The entire gesture.  Perfect.  

Artist: Alvin Lopez.  He is the bomb.  Father of our beloved godson Abel Kaleo.  Second Papa to our boys.  Talent.

I grew up in the Presbyterian church but went to Japanese schools.  My grandparents had all kinds of miracles that came out of their devout Catholicism.  I have my own relationship to "Spirit."  It involves a LOT of time outdoors with family.  And cooking, happily.  And service.

The Buddha to me represents a human desire to know Truth ~ certainly another word for "God."  Practicing Buddhists make 3 promises, that can be applied to any religion, belief system or spiritual practice: 

1 Take shelter in the possibility of enlightenment.  This can also be called transcendence, being born again, having clarity or being saved.

2 Take shelter in the teachings.  Apply preferred teachings HERE__________.

3 Take shelter in the Sangha.  Or community.  Or congregation.  Or whatever.

Let me mention my friend Rev. angel Kyodo williams, spiritual director of The Center for Urban Peace.  When I considered attending her meditation classes, I told her I've always been afraid of getting hit on the head with a stick by a Zen Master.  She smiled & said, "Oh.  But the stick is the reward."

Observing Architecture

This past week we've done a few "Architectural tours" around town.  The boys have taken pictures of things they deem interesting & then they've come home to draw their discoveries.  

They've especially enjoyed using a glue gun with their blocks.  Part of me wants to "save" their toys for their intended purpose, & I have to remind myself that this IS their intended purpose.  I start to worry about having a large permanent art installment in my home that they'll never, ever want me to throw away. Then I remember this is the perfect use for all those clutter-y extra bits.

Today they made a ship with smoke stacks & ropes for tugging, an airport with air traffic control towers, & Santa's village.  I'm fascinated at how collaborative this is, "I have an idea!  Free, can I add sign to your store?"  "Sure.  I'm just going to glue a light onto your tower." I think knowing the glue gun is dangerous (& so, in danger of being taken away) helps them to move slowly & focus.

I love the little "Kisses" shop with the kiss roof, the little fish for the "Fish Market" & the placement of the Indian Elephant.  Just because.

This whole idea sprouted from Blue Yonder's Book of Days.

Some of the boy's pictures from town:

carved door

arched gate w/ brick

variegated roof + curved red tile shingles

arched walkways

carved adobe + trim + towers / turrets

These are all very "California Spanish."  We also looked for details reminiscent of home back East:

dormers + scrolled sign holders

shutters

I can't wait to until it really warms up.  Then we'll head to San Francisco & I'll show them the city how I know it: with a camera, Sharpies & a notebook, plus enough change to hop on & off the Muni bus. 

making elderberry flutes

Anyone can make these ~ with my supervision & his brother's help, my three year-old carved his stick with a screw-driver, filed the inside & rounded out his holes with a Swiss Army knife.  They are very satisfying, & to make them you first have to find an elderberry plant that's given off some sticks.  The fresh ones have endangered Elderberry Beetles in them, so you must make sure the sticks are old & dry.  It's a great simple activity that can lead to further studies in Botany, Ecology, Native Cultures, Music, Woodworking, & Entomology.  At least for the older kids.  For Free, it's a chance to work at "Tooling."  We made these in an hour with much elbow grease. 

The Elderberry Flute has "2 voices," & sounds different from each end.  Unlike most flutes, which are played at the side of the mouth or straight down, this is played at a diagonal.  You'll hold it between the middle &  side of your mouth, pointing towards the floor three feet in front of you.  Instead of a blow, it will just take the tiniest puffs, very subtle.  Advanced players will hum into it, creating a didjeridoo-effect.

Traditionally these were made using sticks & sharp stones, but today they're made with tools.  Elderberry is all over the United States & very easy to find.  They have yellow flowers, purplish berries & serrated leaves.  You can print this picture, but I'd consult a field guide to be sure.

Materials:

1 Elderberry Stick, about 1" wide

Hand Saw or serrated knife ~ I keep a steak knife for this & don't let the kids help

1 screw driver, flat-head is easiest 

1 pocket knife

Optional: round metal file.

How To:

1  Use a hand saw to make the ends flat.

2  Slowly carve out the inner red pith with the screw driver.  

3  You'll need to turn the stick upside down frequently to tap out the saw dust.

4  Really try to get it all out.  Go slowly, turning the stick as you go.  It's easier to go slowly with soft pith than to go fast & compact the pith.

5  Find the middle of the flute & place your thumb there.  Now place your four fingers opposite, with 2 on either side of your thumb.  Mark those places.  They should be about one thumb-print width apart for the person who will use the flute.

6  When it's hollow, use the pocket knife to carve out 4 small holes.  I just started the holes so the knives wouldn't slip, then handed them to the kids to finish.  Again, have them go slow so they don't crack the wood.  The larger the hole, the more musical it will be & easier to learn.

7  You can now look at your flute & see if the bark should be stripped off.  If it looks nice how it is, you can just carve a bit off at the ends.  This helps it to play.

Yesterday we sat with one hundred rain-soaked families at UC Davis to carve these.  Apparently all California Native tribes made this exact instrument.  I think only one person in the room was able to play theirs, but the docent, Antonio Flores, was able to take each person's flute & play any number of lovely local songs.  We got a kick out of one, which asks "Toyo" for help to win & beat an opponent at hand games.  We've been asking "Toyo" for help to play our flute.  He warned us that it might take months before we hear anything.  That's okay, though ~ the flutes themselves are simple but hard to make, so the result is so satisfying & beautiful we don't mind.  We've been practicing & figure we might need to build up some muscles we don't know about.

cultivating music love

"violin"

I often wonder how much passion is truly cultivated, & how much is innate.

"i'm tracking the notes to the sounds on the cd." wow. really?

Even though I come from a musical family, it hasn't been reflected in my parenting very much.  D's family is not traditionally musical, but they are true music lovers.  When we first got together I would pull onto his parent's street, & some combination of Elvis, Doo Wop, & Country music would float over to meet me five houses down. Antique jukebox collectors, the kids got their love of the very loud stereo from them. 

D has a "producer's ear," able to hear every instrument & constantly harping about old songs he'd like to sample into new songs, only to hear them on the radio months later.  Before we had children he attended USC's Music Master's program & founded MixMatters, a company for radio dj's that also promotes artists.  It turned into more of a mix show syndication, however, so we turned it over to his partner Todd, who's a fabulous dj.

At the time Robert Kardasian was his mentor, obviously before he passed away.  So different from his dysfunctional family everyone knows on TV, Robert was loving, smart & supremely grounded in his passions.  He was able to turn his love of music into several different, yet all very successful companies.  He taught D how to take a passion & run with it in business.  Often a song will come on we'll both be reminded of Robert & how he followed his heart.

D is a full-out Papa Bear, & the kids are still surprised every time he goes to work, they so think he's here, just for them. But really D is busy. He's not hanging around here with the stereo on, teaching them music appreciation.  When he gets the kids he heads straight outside for some active Dad & boy time.

I think the music love around here is theirs.  Mahal & I are listening to Rev. Michael Beckwith's Life Visioning Process (my idea of fun), & we heard an interesting idea this morning.  He asked if we are "willing to be joyfully available for the Universe to Broadcast itself through us?"  I love this.  Like if we can be grateful & happy, then we can be the "stereo speakers" for the full expression of Spirit.  (Or be it's hands, in my case.)  What if no ideas are our own?  What if they all belong to "goodness" & we are just the tools? What if the more available we are, then the more creative we are, the more productive, the more able?  This idea believes that our individual expression is still unique, but uniquely the result of us at our most aligned with goodness.

Mahal said, "It's like, Are we willing to really listen?"

I tend to go really far with the thinking.  He distills it to the simplest, loveliest note.

baby djembe

 

baby djembe fig. 2 ~ jammin'  

kid confidence is amazing ~ they know it all works, it's all music

godbrothers

making, playing & listening to paper instruments (!!)

baby toys? no thank you.  tambourine, please

ear training

music love >>> a desire to write music

bringing it all together

a princess in the hay

 

Is yellow the color of happiness?  It might very well be.  This was so fun ~ I think I may organize a few albums by color.  Certainly it was a great excuse to get outside.  I imagine this sweetheart is the farmer's daughter who met her match in Rumplestilsken.  You know, before she grew up.  

This is where she lives, a skip away in Capay Valley.  On Full Belly Organic Farm.

Dreamy, right?  Did I say she was a princess?  I meant a Farming Fairy Princess.  And that's about as inspiring as it gets for me.

& so...goodbye to all that

yellow week - friday

I've been looking at these pictures all week & thinking, "I'm not going to post this."

I've now looked at them enough times that it's become a little unconscious mantra, "I'm not going to post this, I'm not going to post this."  

When that happens, I know it means I'm feeling confronted.  

Would it sound crazy to say that I'm sometimes very ashamed of these cars?  That instead of being grateful to say that I know them, well, I generally act like they aren't there?  

My loved ones know I've had quite the mixed soup of emotions on the subject of exotics ~ exotic cars, that is.  D loves them. He loves them so much he created an exotic car share.   He's got a perfect eye for details & color & lines.  

Yes, he is a social entrepreneur (aka "green entrepreneur" aka "environmentalist").  No, these certainly don't help the environment.  But they are recycled, & they are shared, so that those who love them can use them without using the extra resources it would take to produce new cars & have them live in each guy's garage.  Or dip into their family expenses by trying to own & upkeep them.  No one knows as well as he does that men who love them will find a way to have them.  

Ideally they would take that saved money & give it away to some meaningful cause.

The business is called "Toccare," which means, "Take your turn" in Italian.  It's a beautiful business.  Look at that license plate.  

Look at these men.  What are they looking at?  

I've gone back & forth ~ am I ashamed?  Am I so proud of D?  Do I think he's absolutely brilliant? Am I embarrased & unable to justify these things in my life?  Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  & Yes.

I have to admit, that was my boat in the back there.  The Mastercraft X45, which allows me to surf behind it, because it makes actual surfing waves.  I picked out the decals & everything.

Which made for an interesting kind of playdate I certainly didn't have growing up, often resource-poor in San Francisco.

The whole thing has given me much probably unneeded anxiety.

D consulted with extraordinarily conscious & mindful economists when crafting his business plans.  When he questioned the morality & worth of this idea, they said 2 things: 

1.) You have to have joy in what you do

2.) For Americans, the car is the symbol of hope & freedom (I know, now we have new one)

We're really beyond low-key in our lives ~ check out the ramshackle garage.  Which happened to house a Lotus & Porsche 911Turbo.

And...those days are over.  It's a different time for all of us.  The company's not gone.  It's thriving in a whole new way.  It's just not our deal anymore.  I don't miss the cars, & D still gets to keep his love for them.  Now we get to focus on family, friends, & our health.  What's left is memories, pictures & really, how proud of him I am.  What a brilliant idea.  Brilliant.

Brilliant.

found: gnome caps!!

yellow week, wednesday

 Look at these teeny, tiny, super wee caps they spotted creek-side. Belonging, obviously, to 4 cold-headed baby gnomies & their parents.

I just left Stefani & her crew this comment regarding their Book of Days:

"Hey Guys, we're so using our Book! Just came back from "tracking" ~ & I can't believe the places we ended up! It's such a great new way to look at our little town. We went to rural areas & went people tracking, first. They found capri suns, secret compost heaps with shovels in them, rope swings, slews they dragged me through, a nest w/ hundreds of red beetles, a cement tunnel w/ boyish proportions & a black hen 15 feet up in a tree ~ I didn't know they could go that high. Tomorrow we'll go downtown, too, before taking a glue gun to our blocks! Thanks!!"

We just had another perfect day with lots of help from them. If you have littles & want to savor every second, then I suggest you get one, too. To be honest, though, these are all things I would do for my own amusement or even with my friends when I was a young adult. There's plenty of ideas for older kids, I think. For instance, we're going on 2 architectural walks tomorrow: one of our neighborhood, filled with many versions of the same mid-century modern home, & then downtown to look at elements used to gain customers' attention. We have a huge basket of old blocks waiting to be glued, drawn on, & even wittled with a knife to help make some of their findings truly their own.

I'm surprised at where this went today. Specifically, after a 6-hour, 6-boy playdate, my guys had me at a mystery park in the super-cold dark, laughing, catching & climbing with them. I don't usually do cold-night-outside-mommying after an already full day. Sounds awful. But it wasn't. It was easy & fun. I had already been through several creeks, through stranger's gardens & picked up Mekhi through lots of tall brush today. I felt alive & present, & happy. The boys really got me, & I got them.

yellow week ~ california gold

About two miles from our home is the sweetest little farm, Impossible Acres. The boys love nothing more than to hop into our "car," & check out what's new ~ berry picking?  Baby goats?  Barn kittens?  A turkey?  Apricots?  This past fall there was a goat named Peanut Butter that was incredibly affectionate, & he's become part of our "family farm fantasy."  You know, "One day, when we have Peanut Butter."  As the rains continue to grow that back corner of weeds, however, I'm thinking we need to get ourselves a little PB sooner than later.  In the meantime, we still have plenty of squash...

yellow bits

Last night we joined Erin's Yellow Week, knowing it would be a challenge for us to find any of the bright hue in our world.  I love the color, And, it makes me look green.  I imagined I'd have to take some liberties, with a week's worth of posts titled, "Yellowish," "Yellowed," "Yellowing," & "Golden." But with a bit of hunting, we found some good bits of straight up yellow.  

Just a bit around South America, there

And then I was offered some sushi wrapped in yellow nori.

And a "Caterpillar Roll," also meant to be sushi, but obviously, made up of fortune cookies.  

This is a great "no help" kid's craft ~ have them trace drinking glasses for the circles, then tape on twisty ties in the middle.  They fold them over the ties & hold it closed while pinching the ties backwards & creasing them.  The controlling crafter in me has to be totally hands-off for some crafts, or else I      start trying to make them hide the tape. Which is so unfair for little guys, who think, "the tape is beautiful."  And...it is.  They're right.

They had their Lola (Grandma in Pilipino) make up these funny fortunes.  Can you read them? 

Help! I am being held prisoner in a Chinese Fortune Cookie

Learn Chinese

Do not follow the instructionson this fortune cookie

You are not illiterate

Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today

And my favorite:

LIFE IS NOT A STRUGGLE, IT'S A WIGGLE.

Thank you.