So I took Jason to that One Man Star Wars show, and it was really good. Here’s a nice picture I captured from it:
Sadly, this is the last picture I will ever capture from this awesome camera because this afternoon I left it at the theater by accident. So while we were treated to a good show (that I partly slept through, but whatever) I unfortunately cannot show you the picture I took there because somebody got an early Christmas present this year. Fantastic little camera, I was careless, I said to myself, “Put it away, you’re going to forget about it, it will fall off your lap …” Boy was I right! I am trying to get over it but this will probably haunt me for a few days.
My chess score is currently running: 2 wins, 5 or 6 losses. All my friends who “suck at chess ” obviously suck at it less than I do. Grrrr.
Sue’s artistic abilities have taken a recent jump. I think it might have something to do with the subject of last weeks class:
Apparently I don’t provide Sue with the proper inspiration to develop her instrument … ;-)
Sue and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica in the past few weeks. I forgot to mention it, even though it was a big, huge event in our lives. Let me explain how two Americans lost in London get to watch a show that is not currently available here. Our friend Jeff was mean to me and made fun of that fact that we can’t use TiVos or get current shows in London, so when I told him that he was mean he decided to take pity and made it his mission in life to solve my BSG (BattleStar Galactica) problem. We thought about some high tech solutions, some high tech and illegal solutions, and some low tech illegal solutions, and in the end after I begged him not to, he sent me the first four hours of BSG on … wait for it … mini DV tapes captured from his TiVo box! The quality was excellent and I immediately captured them onto my Mac, re-encoded them as MPG4 and uploaded them to my website so my Mom in Massachusetts could download them and watch them on her computer as well (since she no longer has the Sci-Fi channel).
What do you think? It’s been worth it, but now the 4 tapes are back in transit to Foster City where I hope 4 more episodes are queuing up.
I can’t believe I lost my new camera.
The kids finished their soccer/football. Next Saturday we are looking forward to sleeping in. We heard so much about the horrors of the wind and the rain at Wormwood Scrubs but it never materialized this year, at least not the rain. It was windy and downright cold some mornings, but still, it was not bad at all. In recent weeks we’ve been catching a ride with the coach in the morning (the one taking Madeline - Jason’s starts a couple hours later). I get him the cappuccino and he gives us a ride. Not a bad deal at all. The TUBE, TUBE, BUS combination can range from 1 hour to 1.5 hours, but in all fairness, it was basically an hour every week except the first, horrible one. So, not bad. I am going to miss that big, beautiful prison wall.
Two weeks ago my espresso machine broke. It’s under warranty so I returned it, but it’s been two weeks! So I have had to get up and out of bed and over to the coffee shops across the street for two weeks in a row, and believe me … it’s not a good thing! Despite the grease in my hair I find the people in Gail’s to be quite friendly. I told the guy there that he is the only reliable “barista” in the area. Nice and tasty every time, the only one more reliable than myself.
I miss making my espresso every morning, I really do. My cheapo machine is very good and I almost like the fact that I have to do about 10 different things to get the machine not to make a mess, either with the steam or the coffee. Keeps me on my toes at a time when it’s just the smell of the coffee that’s keeping me moving in the first place.
Here’s my first wide-angle shot of a portion of the Heath. It was dark and almost raining and I had no tri-pod, but here it is. Unfortunately it’s very windy around here so I think the leaves will all be gone by the time they finish changing colors.
Jason continues his growth spurt. He is reading things all over the place, aware of what’s going on when we’re traveling on the TUBE, he got his first 10 out of 10 on a spelling test, he teaches me a little bit of history every time I pick him up from school, and of course he wrote a poem and entered a contest. It’s so different now with him.
Jason has been going through a night terror episode again. He used to have nasty night terrors when he was 2 or 3 where we’d bring him down to the family room and he would yell and scream in terror for 20 minutes, and then suddenly snap out of it (I actually have a 20 minute video some place in CA I need to show him some day …) We learned that Hotwheels videos helped him snap out of it in those days. Just before we moved to London Jason went through another episode, but I figured out that he was over-heating and waking up in a pool of sweat. The reason was that he developed fear of the door into his bathroom, especially if he was going to bed and Madeline wasn’t yet in her room, leaving Jason all alone in the bedroom side of our CA house. He developed that fear and dealt with it by wrapping himself up like a cocoon in his blankets, completely covered, so he couldn’t see the door by accident OR on purpose! Once I figured that out, I went into his room after an hour, uncovered him completely, the episodes stopped.
They showed up again about three weeks ago here in London and they are a little different. He sits up in bed, seems kinda upset, it slowly escalates while we’re talking to him and trying to calm him down, soon he starts yelling a little bit, we carry him downstairs so Madeline doesn’t wake up, the yelling turns into screams of utter terror. One night we heard him say that he couldn’t find the comma! Oh great! He’s freaking out at school! Usually he’s screaming for Mommy and/or Daddy in utter terror, and we’re trying to help him wake up, we tell him we’re right here. Once we said, “Where’s mommy!” while Sue was holding him right in front of her face, and Jason screamed back, “I DON’T KNOW WHERE SHE IS!!!!!!” Meanwhile, the TV is on playing an episode of Star Wars, and slowly the screams subside and Jason starts sobbing a little, and quiets down even more, and then sometimes says, “How did I get here?” Sue and I look at each other, having just spent 10 or 15 minutes with a kid screaming in terror at the top of his lungs (like, why haven’t the police shown up at the door, we keep wondering) and there Jason is just glad to be watching Star Wars.
So now we set our watch for 1 hour and one of us goes upstairs and stirs him a little, we’ve been putting him to bed without a shirt (even though it’s the winter) and then putting it on him when we go to bed. When we’re first putting him to bed he says, “I hope I have a night terror so I can watch Star Wars!” We tell him what happens and I like to re-enact it with him sometimes, and he’ll be laughing hysterically at my screaming in terror at him. It’s just one of those things that keeps you on your toes …
This post is short on pictures, long on words. Sorry about that.