Ready to Ride: Francine's First Snow Storm

As many of you know, Francine grew up in Los Angeles, and then spent many years stuck in a back room in Springfield, Oregon.

Today, we are having a blizzard in Bend, and it occurred to me that she's never seen snow.

I figured I'd better let her experience it, since there is talk of her going snowboarding soon, for a video shoot. She's a great model, a fine actress, and a good sport, but it's important that she doesn't go in to a new situation "cold," as they say. She needs to understand her surroundings in order to find her motivation.

As her agent and her friend, I needed to see how snow would affect her skin, since she's not really water proof (no synchronized swimming films for her, sorry). I also wanted to make sure she can actually wear boots. She can.

Francine was quite interested in the snow, and thanks to this fabulous Betty Rides coat of my daughter's (from several years ago, these coats never wear out!) she stayed warm and dry.

Except for her face, where the snow hit it. It melted the word of the day on her cheek. So she may wear goggles next time, and perhaps a ski mask, depending on the weather.

Guess what the word was?

International Hopscotch Society

In my ongoing quest for fun fitness options, I decided we should all play hopscotch.

Sometimes my brilliant ideas just hit me all at once, for no logical reason. This is one of those ideas. Probably.

Although maybe reading the word hopscotch (randomly) on the Internet today caused my synapses to fire up and think: "Hey, hopscotch is fun. It's aerobic. There is hopping involved, and Scotch, maybe."

.

So I said "Who's in?"online, and my cousin Amy, who was super busy at work, apparently, answered back "I am!" so the deal was sealed. She's heading up the Portland, Oregon chapter. And then someone from Florida said yes, then some guy from Idaho, and, well, you know...

Amy is a good sport

One thing lead to another, and within 45 minutes, I had managed to talk my husband into driving me downtown because I had a strong memory of hopscotch courts (are they called courts?) being down there by the City Hall swing sets, but when we got there, lo and behold, there were none.

In fact, there wasn't even much pavement, just grass and some sand. And swings. But I'm not starting a swinger's club. Trust me on this.

"I distinctly remember hopscotch, near an old brick building...I swear it!" I said.

"Maybe that was in a different city?" He offered helpfully, but I knew he was exasperated already. "And why are we doing this again? And how long will this take? I have some programming to finish. I'm almost done. I want to finish my project today..." blah blah blah.

"Shh," I said. "There's gotta be a school around here somewhere. We just need a few pictures...for my new blog. And Twitter. And Facebook. I'll be quick, promise."

"I'm not going to a school playground with a camera to take pictures while kids are at recess," he growled, "I don't think we're allowed."

"But we can just tell them this is for the International Hopscotch Society! It will be fine!"

And then he started driving home. Which made me sigh with exasperation, and think of phrases like "You never help me. Every thing's always about you. You're no fun. You never let me do what I want..." but of course none of these things are true. At all. And I know it, and he knows it.

Because I actually have a vintage mannequin with customized steel rods in her legs and a rolling stand that weighs 50 pounds, which he has personally loaded in and out of the car and driven to the airport so I could take her to Las Vegas to see a concert, standing in our living room right this second, and she happens to be dressed in the Star Trek shirt he got when he was a kid in the 1970's, the beloved shirt his mom saved for him all these years, and when she found it in a box after she moved, and brought it over, he handed it to me and said "Francine should wear this."

Because, you know, he thought it'd be funny. Because it is.

I think he heard my unspoken thoughts right there in the car, because he said "can't you just go to our kid's school after school? They have hopscotch there, and then, you know, you wouldn't embarrass him...he'd be home."

"No." I pouted. "I have a meeting this afternoon and the light will be all wrong by 4:00 for pictures. Just take me home, I'll try to come back, somewhere, and take pictures of myself doing hopscotch. Somehow."

So then he did roll his eyes and turned the car around, and we drove slowly by two of the closest school playgrounds to see if they had hopscotch, but they didn't. And luckily, all the kids were safely back in their rooms, so we did not attract any playground stalker attention. Because that would be bad PR for the newly formed International Hopscotch Society.

"Wait!" I said with a burst of inspiration. "We have chalk at home. I'll just draw my own hopscotch on the sidewalk! Sheesh, why didn't I think of that before?"

And so we did drive home, and I found some lavender chalk, which doesn't show up on light gray very well, but beggars can't be choosers.

So, now there is a blog and all kinds of social media promoting this new International Hopscotch Society, which means it's real, and all of you should join.

And if you don't have a court, draw one. And if you don't have chalk, or it's too cold outside, get some masking tape and make one inside. Invite your friends and neighbors, and hop around together. And then send me the pictures and videos at julie anderson at hotmail dot com or post them on the Facebook page, and we will appreciate each other and celebrate hopping and scotching.

It is sort of sexy, really, if you think about it, all that hopping around and drinking scotch...but please don't send naked Hopscotch photos or videos. I don't think they're allowed. I'll check the rules.

My Amazing Finger

I'm so proud of the middle finger on my right hand. I burned it on a hot pan last week, and it hurt so much, I thought I might faint.

It was one of those deep burns, several degrees burned, I'm sure. I'm not sure how many degrees though. A doctor would know, or a nurse, but I never asked one. I just looked at my finger 20 times a day and said ow, ow, ow.

And I never once told it I was sorry.

My finger just quietly did its job, though, without complaining. It didn't pretend it couldn't function. It didn't call in sick. It kept working, typing, doing dishes, and helping all the other fingers do their jobs.

Then it just started regrowing skin. It looked horrible for a while, turned a bit yellow and oozy, and it scared a few children, but that didn't stop it from growing a little bit of new skin every day.

Now there's just a small, red mark where the gaping, painful wound used to be. I'd say by Friday, I won't even be able to see where the burn was. And soon I'll forget the memory of the pain. And I know my finger will never mention it.

So I'd like to publicly thank my finger, for doing such a miraculous thing so humbly and graciously, without complaining or reminding me how stupid I was to touch a hot pan.

I wish I could be more like my finger.

***By the way, this is a picture of hand soap! I found it here.

I Have a Kudasama Flower Girl Entrepreneur

My 16 year old daughter is an artist.

She'd rather draw than do homework. She'd rather design a big, mascot-type fox head out of plastic screens and faux fur than clean her room. She'd rather make me an original, animated widget for my blog for mother's day than go buy something. She'd rather make a YouTube video on how to draw eyes than watch a movie with her family on Saturday night.

So when she brought down one of these lovely Kudasama paper flowers she made yesterday, I was not surprised at all, but I was very happy, and very excited. I love these things.

I told her I want a several of them, to put around the room, and that we could hang up a bunch of small ones on a curtain rod in front of our sliding glass doors to make a paper curtain. I could envision 30 or 40 flower spheres hanging on strings, moving slightly as people walked by, looking all modern and contemporary and elegant and art installation-y.

So my daughter invited a friend over, and together they made several of these lovely flowers, in various sizes. Her friend's mom arrived, and we began to fight over how many were going home with the other girl, and how many were staying home.

Not fighting, really, just, you know...trying to be fair and all...to the girls.

So then the girls, being smart and business minded, and tired of the negotiations, said we could buy them. And in fact, if we wanted them to make any more, they'd be happy to sell some to us.

So of course, the other mom and I looked at each other, looked at the girls, looked at the flowers, and said, at the very same time:

How much?

How the neighbors see me...

One bad thing about living in a high density neighborhood is not having a yard. So we have to let the pesky little dog outside whenever he asks. Which is a bummer when it's 20' outside. Of course I just throw on whatever warm clothes are closest to the door.

My family laughs, sometimes. But I figure the neighbors already know I'm quirky, so they probably don't even notice my get-ups any more.

For the record: no 13 year old fashionistas were physically harmed by taking this picture. Emotionally? Maybe. She'll get over it, some day.

Apple Pie.

If you came here thinking I'd talk you out of eating lovely holiday food, you're in the wrong place.

I do like pie. Especially this amazing pie from Grandma Opal, that we found on All Recipes.com last year.

You make a sort of Carmel sauce out of butter and brown sugar, then you pour it over a mound of thinly sliced apples, then you criss-cross some dough on the top, bake it for a while at 350' and - -

Voila. Delicious.

So, who's running tomorrow? Besides me, obviously...

Snow Running - Breathable Underwear

It's a glorious day in Bend, Oregon. The sun is shining on the fresh, white blanket of snow, and the blue sky says "no excuses, get outside."

Now I'm hunting up the Yak Traks to put on my running shoes so I won't slip, and appreciating my warm, first layer of "microfleece" Paradox running pants and shirt I got at Costco a couple of weeks ago.

I do like my Paradox long underwear. Because it's breathable. Which makes it seem alive. Which is really, really cool, the more I think about it.

Living, breathing underwear? If your underwear could breathe, would it have a nose? Would you want it to? How far will biotechnology evolve? Will your underwear grow a mouth and talk some day? What would it say?

Maybe I'll have another cup of tea and think about the answers to these questions before I go snow running.

Pipe down, blue sky, I'll be out there in a minute.