another milestone achieved

Natalya has officially mastered a two-wheeler! Needless to say, she's feeling very grown up now. The day this picture was taken it was about 90 degrees outside. When Natalya got dressed for school she ran downstairs and grabbed her winter fleece jacket to wear.

Me: "Natalya it's going to be really warm outside today. You don't need a jacket."

Natalya: "Yes I do Mom. I need to wear the jacket to protect people from seeing my cute clothes."

Me: (making a mental note: don't ever tell Natalya that she looks cute in her clothes.)

playdate

got dreams?

Yesterday morning I told Natalya that she could ride her bike to school (I throw the bike in my car and she rides from the parking lot to the classroom). She replied "oh Mama you're the best! You make my dreams come true!"

And Miss Muffet makes my dreams come true as well — she's going to be an awesome basektball player! Here's a picture of her playing while her proud mom looks on :)

girls just wanna have fun

I love this pic of Natalya and her pal Yarden playing with shaving cream at Camp Rimon. Those two girls really know how to have a good time!

perhaps it was a premonition?

Florida State 68, Stanford 61

I am in mourning. My Stanford girls lost to Florida State last night. And they lost at home. It's so painful! I wouldn't feel so bad if we'd (yes we'd) played a good game. But we didn't. We pretty much sucked. This is really testing my resolve to not see loss as disaster.








Stanford center Brooke Smith wipes her eyes after Stanford was upset by Florida State 68-61 during their second-round game in the NCAA women's basketball tournament.

loss & luck

As we head into basketball season's March Madness where one loss means you're out of the tournament — I've been thinking about loss and luck in general. I certainly had my share of losses and luck in 2006. And it's still difficult not to initially view every loss as a disaster — but I'm working on it :) Here's a little something from Elizabeth Bishop:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost
that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.
Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.
None of these will bring disaster.

Even losing you (the lovely voice, a brilliant smile) I shan't have lied.
It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like
(write it!) like disaster.

i met a REAL rock star...

The coolest thing happened last week: I finally met a real rock star! What do you mean by 'real' you ask? I mean the guy who invented the Apple iPhone!!! How cool is that?

I saw this guy at a Stanford game playing with what looked like an iPhone and thought to myself "that looks like an iPhone". But then I thought that it couldn't be an iPhone because nobody has an iPhone yet (except for Steve Jobs er -- and this guy).

Anyway, it turns out that the man who's been sitting in front of me at Stanford games for the past three years or so is the one and only Scott Forster. Not only did he create the iPhone, he created Mac OSX as well. A true genius and a true rock star in my book!

crime scene?

I found two of Natalya's Barbie dolls sprawled out on the floor this morning -- so far I haven't found any witnesses to the heinous crime.

who's your daddy?

So I'm laying in bed this morning cuddling with Natalya and listening to a CD: Lisa Marie Presley to be exact. At one point I looked at Natalya and asked, "did you know that Lisa Marie is Elvis Presley's daughter?"

Natalya looked at me with eyes wide and replied, "you mean OUR ELVIS?"

You gotta love that kid of mine :)

happy valentine's day

The Yahoo! billboard in San Francisco.

the agony of defeat

No. 8 Stanford Women's Hoops Upset By No. 21 California, 72-57 Stanford's winning streak is ended at 17 games.

Pinch me -- am I dreaming? No. It's a nightmare! That's right folks. My Stanford Women's Basketball team LOST to Cal on Sunday. I'm still recovering. I think I'm in the angry stage of grieving now.

How the f---k could my girls let this happen?! The Stanford women haven't lost to Cal in six years. And this is their first loss in the Pac-10 Conference this year (now they're 11-1). I know. It's still a respectable record for the season -- but lose to Cal? Unacceptable!

Freshman Center Jane Appel fights for a rebound

dental trauma

My little daredevil had an accident at school the other day. Natalya and her friend Ori were on the same swing playing "spider" (I still haven't gotten a straight answer about what this game entails) and Natalya fell off. Then Ori fell on Natalya and her teeth ended up in his head. Ori's head is fine. Natalya's teeth are not.

After two hours at the dentist Natalya now has "splints" on her front teeth. Turns out that the four teeth in the front (on top) were all injured and lose. Ouch!

She's feeling very grown up because "it's like I have braces like the big kids" and couldn't wait to show her pals at school. Thank goodness she's such an optimist!

We have a special mouth wash to prevent infection and will go back to the dentist in 10 days. The dentist thinks that the main two front teeth will fall out within six months on their own. She's trying to save the other two because the roots are still quite long.

Hopefully we've made our one and only trip to the "Dental Trauma Room" at her dentist's office. :)

fame

the other day natalya and i were in the car chatting about her singing talent. we discussed what it was like to sing in front of an audience "like Madonna" (yes. that's my daughter!) anyway, she thought for a moment and then declared that she didn't want to sing in front of a lot of people because she "might get stagefreaked."

by the way: Natalya has changed her stage name from Sydney Wicked to "Vicky Hartbrask". (don't ask -- I have no idea where she gets this stuff from).

krispy kreme car jack

i had a strange experience while driving to shoreline the other day. i'm sitting at a stop light and all of a sudden this guy is standing next to my car and yelling something at me. i quickly locked my doors. then somehow the yelling registered as "frantic" rather than "angry" so i rolled down my window.

guy: where's Krispy Kreme?
me: what?
guy: how do I get to Krispy Kreme from here?
me: oh. um. get back on 101 north and exit at Rengstorff.
guy: (while running back to his car which was behind mine) okay. thanks!
me: whew!


and here's a pic of my girlie doing one of her modeling poses.
she's modeling one of her gender bender outfits. :)

a new year on the horizon (and a confession)

went for a walk near Shoreline at sundown and shot this pic of the top of the tent. i can't wait for the new concert season to begin!














And speaking of Shoreline -- I have a confession to make: Kelly Clarkson kicked ass last summer when she played "the Shed"!

I really wasn't looking forward to the show. I mean -- it was only Kelly Clarkson afterall -- just an American Idol champion. It's not like Melissa Etheridge was performing.

The night arrived and Shoreline was filled with thousands of little girls with their moms in tow. It was the first concert for most of them and you could feel the excitement in the air (seriously). When Kelly took the stage the place erupted! Everyone was screaming for Kelly. The audience sang along with every word to every song. Kelly sounded fantastic. She worked the crowd and made sure that the first time concert-goers had a memorable experience... it was everything a concert should be. Kudos to Kelly! I'm a convert (seriously).

a very fine gingerbread house

natalya and i built a gingerbread house together over the holiday break. it was quite an experience to say the least. here's my favorite quote from the event:

"Natalya get your hand out of your pants. We don't stick our hand in our pants when we're building gingerbread houses."

i'm amazed at the things i say as a parent...

the things we do for love...

May I vent for a minute? I think that the packaging gods have it in for parents or something. I had a heck of a time helping Natalya get her presents out of their respective boxes on Christmas morning. Each and every little item was secured in the box by a long piece of wire that was twisted this way and that. By the time I got to the sixth or seventh one I was ready to bring out the big bolt cutters! Only you can't do that really because you might clip the Little Mermaid's head off by accident.

What happened to the good old days when little toy pieces floated freely inside their boxes?

Suffice it to say that as a parent, I often find myself doing things that no sane person would ever do. For example, here I am drying the Little Mermaid's hair after she had a bath with Natalya on Christmas night. I couldn't send either one of the girls to bed with a wet head now could I?!









And here's the reason I do all of these crazy things...my sweet Natalya!

She's enjoying her first time playing in 'real' snow -- ever. This was taken a couple days before Christmas. This guy in San Carlos brings in a truck load of snow every year and dumps it in front of his house. Kids come from miles around to play in the snow :)

season's greetings

what is that thing?

I found this thing growing next to the fence in my front yard. it must be some kind of mushroomy thing.

Elvis: Live at Works Gallery!!!

Last Saturday night was a lot of fun! I donated a new Elvis portrait (Lint Me Tender) to Works Gallery in San Jose for their 30th anniversary auction. I used to be on the Board of Directors at Works (way back in the 90s).

Anyway, on the way to the gallery opening Natalya said, "People actually pay money for your artwork, right Mama?"

At the gallery we had fun watching people's reactions and listening to their comments about Elvis. My favorite comment was, "This is SO COOL — and disturbing at the same time. I mean, where did all of that lint come from?"













Lint Me Tender