Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today Lucinda and I went to a birthday party for a girl she knows from school. They had a big back yard and a very big jumper-slide for the kids to play in. And play they did. Pretty much the whole time except for cake and piñata. The while all of this was going on, the adults were chatting about real estate and taking tours of the newly-remodeled house. And by the end of the party, all the adults were trying out the jumper, too. It was a tall one. From the top we could see over the roof of the house, and it was a pretty long drop down the slide. I carried my camera up to the top and tried to get an ‘action shot’ on the way down the slide. And Lucinda learned to do her Spider-Girl thing and climb up the slide. It was fun.

So Lucinda had some money from her birthday. At first she wanted to buy two more American Girl dolls, but we pointed out that she hardly plays with the ones she already has. We told her she should think about different things to buy with the money and compare them carefully. We came up with a list of about six or seven things that she wanted. The list included things like the Barbie Power Wheels Jeep, a loft bed, a Playstation, and a few other things. In the end, she decided that she wanted her own phone.

Now, we’re not philosophically opposed to this. But at seven, who are you gonna call? But we’d told her that it was all right, so yesterday after school Mommy and Lucinda went and got it. It’s a Cingular Go Phone on a pay-as-you-go plan. So now she’s all set up. She picked out a ring tone and now she’s just trying to figure out who to call. It’s kind of cute in a weird sort of way.

Yesterday, I read that DEVO, one of my most favoritest bands ever, has a new kids’ CD. It’s ten of their classic songs and two new ones played by the original band and voiced by five fresh-faced tween-agers. And it’s put out by Disney. I thought, “this is just wrong on so many levels“, followed immediately by, “I must have it”.

Now I’m sure that this is an idea that Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald V. Casale had had bubbling around in their heads for some time. I remember hearing about them doing some shows back in 1985 with a band called “Visiting Kids”, featuring their own pre-teen kids. And I’m sure that the fact that Disney wanted to do this was just the icing on the proverbial cake. Is this the ultimate sellout, or gaming the system from inside? Stylus magazine wonders:

“Are all these questions beside the point because Casale and Mothersbaugh have produced something both funny and unsettling, just like the original Devo?”

Regardless, the kids do a good job. Lucinda likes it, and she’s their target audience. So overall, it’s a Good Thing.

Addendum: Lucinda and I watched the DVD that came with the CD. They have ten videos for the songs. Dancing animated pandas and dinosaurs. Energy domes everywhere. And spuds. Lots of spuds. I was trying to explain to Lucinda just why there were so many potatoes in the cartoon sequences. But she enjoyed it. A lot of the songs have been Disney-fied, so they’ve stripped out pretty much all of the original angst. But that in itself is tremendously funny. Songs like “Beautiful World”, which is very dark and depressing have become bouncy and happy. It’s the happiness of an idiot. And that’s very DEVO. So we’re each enjoying this in our own way.

Also, they have a web site:

disney.go.com/disneyrecords/Song-Albums/devo20/

On Sunday afternoon, I took Lucinda down to Redondo Beach to see the last stage of the Tour of California bicycle race. It was a perfect winter beach day, warm and sunny.

This was actually the first time I’ve ever been to an actual professional bicycle race. It was nice. The crowd it drew and the riders in the race were all impressive. The race itself was pretty exciting, with an early breakaway that lasted nearly the whole distance before being caught on the last lap. Lucinda liked watching it, and I got to tell her stories about my bike racing days while we were watching. We also got to see a BMX stunt show, and wander around near the beach. It was a very fun afternoon.

And on a related note, I had found out recently that my old bike racing friend Ray is the founder and manager of the Navigators Insurance Pro Cycling Team and that he was going to be at the race. Lucinda and I had spent a good bit of the afternoon looking for the team camps without luck, but at the end of the race, we saw the Navigators team car go by and we just followed it to their camp. After the prizes were awarded, we found Ray. It was fun to visit with him and reminisce about the days when we were young, strong, and fearless. And Lucinda got an official Navigators cycling cap. So this was a special treat to top off a very nice afternoon.

cycling

Today Lucinda had a friend from the neighborhood over to play, and we took them to see “MatheMagic!” at Caltech. This is one of their “Saturdays at 2:00” programs for kids.

Today’s show featured Bradley Fields, the “Mathemagician”. His show was a magic show combined with math tricks and history of mathematics. And it was very funny and entertaining. Lucinda and her friend liked it a lot.

Today we went to the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana. They were having a special exhibit about dogs, including a dog stunt show, so Lucinda wanted to go see it.

The parking was full when we got there, and there was a long line to get in. I suppose I should consider it a good sign that that many people want to go to a science museum. But on the other hand, I think it may have more to do with the fact that it’s actually a pretty small museum, and the parking lot is also small. Anyway, after parking the car at the nearby mall (there’s no shortage of those in Orange County) we got our tickets and went in.

We saw a presentation on therapy dogs at the local Children’s Hospital, and we got to meet and pet one of the dogs.

The main event of the day was the dog stunt show. The dogs did tricks, including catching, jumping, and running obstacle courses. They were all very good at what they did, and it was very entertaining.

The last thing we did was to ride in the earthquake simulator. It’s one of the better museum earthquake simulators, and it’s more realistic than most. They also have a whole section of the earthquake exhibit devoted to Lucy Jones, which is funny to me, since I work with her. I don’t think of her as being famous, but she’s about as famous as a scientist can be. (Have I mentioned lately that I really like my job?)

After the museum, we stopped off at the mall where we’d parked the car so that Cathy could look for some red hair color. The red she’d gotten just wasn’t red enough. While she discussed hair color minutiae with the beauty supply people, Lucinda and I went and got ice cream.

It was a fun day.

Today we had to go over to the costume shop in Arcadia to pick up some of the supplies we ordered for Lucinda’s birthday party. While we were there, we noticed a little display on the counter. It was a little plastic squeeze bottle sitting on a wooden base. The label said, “Liquid Ass“. So, of course, we smelled it. And it was easily the most horrible odor any of us had ever smelled. (Between growing up in New Jersey, and my father being a chemist, that means something.) So in the true spirit of the Internet, I just wanted to spread the word about Liquid Ass. This is one gag gift that will truly make people gag.

This evening we went to see Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. This is a an all-male comic ballet company. They perform classic ballet en trasvesty. The ‘ballerinas’ have faux-Russian stage names like Ludmila Beaulemova and Tatiana Youbetyabootskya and such. The actual dancers are all trained in traditional serious ballet, but they do this as a form of ‘ballet outreach’. A lot of the humor is based on sending up the traditions of classic ballet. Since we’re not that familiar with the conventions of ballet, we probably missed a lot of the jokes. Still, it was very funny and very entertaining. The ‘dying swan’ was particularly hilarious, with feathers falling out of her tutu all over the stage, followed by two very serious-looking janitors coming out to sweep up afterward.

I had seen the Trockadero ballet on PBS’ “Egg” several years ago. At the time, I made a note that we should see them if they ever came to Los Angeles. And we were not disappointed. It was a very fun evening. And Lucinda has a story to tell now that probably no other kid in her class will be able to match.

Around our house, Superbowl Sunday usually involves completely ignoring the Big Game. Cathy and I have a long-running contest to see who can go the longest knowing absolutely nothing about it. This year I accidentally found out who one of the teams playing was, so I was behind from the start. But aside from that, we managed to ignore it pretty well. Lucinda had a sleepover at her friend’s house on Saturday, and she was playing over there all day. Cathy went to the gym and then went out to do some errands. And I went and got tattooed. So we all managed to have no contact with The Game.

It was good.

Lucinda just lost her first top tooth today. It’s been loose for a long time, and she had Mommy pull it just after dinner.