Frith O’Steen

Hello all!

Well, for want of a clever title idea, you get a sophomoric one instead - lucky you! I can’t believe how long it’s been since I blogged…I feel so rusty! What have I been up to the last couple of weeks? So glad you asked! Let’s see, where to start…(cue fadeback music and visual effects, ala ‘Wayne’s World’):

I went to Utah for several days with mom, Katil, Tully and the little guy. He was really good and I think he liked having a brand new place to explore (ie: someone else’s house). Mom flew in the day before we arrived, to get the house set up and ready for us, but unfortunately she arrived to a flooded basement! There was a water surge on their block (the second one this year!), and it blew their valve. Even worse, apparently it had happened a whole week earlier than mom’s arrival, so imagine the lethal combo of standing water, 40 year old shag carpet, and the smell therein produced - gross gross gross. Mom, being the problem solver that she is, immediately purchased a carpet shampooer and commenced like gangbusters to remedy the problem. After we got there the next day, we realized that the damage was far more extensive than we had realized, and that we might have to replace the whole carpet. We started pulling up corners of it to see how far the water had gone, and let me tell you - it was the nastiest thing I have ever smelled in my life. Seriously - we were playing “Would You Rather?” as we pulled it up and removed the soggy padding underneath, and I meant it (and still do) when I announced that I would rather change 1000 of Decker’s nastiest diapers all by myself than ever deal with something like this again. Ugh. Anyway, we basically drenched the basement in Lysol, shampooed the now pulled up and propped carpet about 3 times front and back, and contacted some servicemen to come check it out. The good news? All our hard work paid off - the shampooing, the propping up of the carpet, the use of every fan and old fashioned hair dryer (the kind with the hose that attached to a bag on your head) that we could find to help dry stuff out - it helped get rid of all the moisture and mold (including the walls, thank goodness)! I should mention that mom and Tully were really the major shampooers in this spectacle - my main job was lifting up the carpet tack boards with a dandelion picker, as we had no crowbar. Hey, you do what you gotta do. So the upshoot is that the carpet was saved, we got the state to come out and repad the floor and put in some new linoleum, and we had a very amusing story to come home with.

Utah wasn’t just about emergency home repairs, however. We also got to visit with some family and friends, enjoy the hot tub late at night, watch a ton of  “Jacob Chick Flicks“ repeatedly (ie: “13 going on 30“), eat lots of junk food, and had fun taking Decker to the park. That kid…he sure loves to play in leaves. And play with his aunts’ handbags. And push the stroller. And now he has discovered that other small people about his size also exist, and he desperately wants to go play with them. I thought at this stage he’d still be having stranger anxiety, but as with many other stages for Decker, he seems to have zoomed past that and is now at the “hey! everyone seems really cool and interesting! i’m sure they want to play with me as much as i want to play with them!” phase. I’m glad he’s not overly shy, but I do get a little worried about how comfortable he is with just about everyone he sees! In November we’re starting an activity class for toddlers his age called “Hippity Hoppers” over at the Pleasant Hill Rec Center, and I think it will be exactly his cup of tea.

Other stuff…I ran into a former student of mine, Thongdam, over in WC yesterday. It was really great to see her and to catch up on what she’s up to. I’ll say this about Berkeley students for sure: they always are doing fascinating things, and usually many of those at once! And even though I haven’t worked at Cal for over a year now, I still seem to run into them more often than I would have imagined…it’s weird but cool.

Other than that…it’s same ol’ thing. Been watching the PBS “History of Broadway“ series, which is really cool. “West Wing“ had it’s premiere last night, and I am thinking there may actually be hope that it won’t suck so bad this year. Have a couple of New Yorkers to get through, and of course am looking forward to the elections with a mixture of fear, anticipation, and resignation. We’ll see on Nov. 3…or 4th…or whenever the official counting is decided! Sure makes for a lot of interesting tv!

Later Skaters!