Things can't be so bad... July 5 - 26, 2006 ... that they could not get even worse!

	Scorcher time It's relatively bearable in the pool...

	... or in a museum... Tom pretends to be at a restaurant

It seems that most of the world (at least the part where our kin and we live) was hit by a heat wave. This is, of course, quite unpleasant -- we can't go out with the kids much and whenever we find the courage anyway, we adults creep around like zombies, which prevents our kids having their run outdoors, and subsequently leads to boredom and hassle.

Naturally, there are few options what to do. Just like every previous summer, this year again we are glad to own a pool. Kids won't wear out and splashing became our afternoon routine. It has also been a lure for friends -- twins from Tom's class became our frequent visitors. It's interesting how individual boys react differently to water. Michael is a duck -- with floater sleeves, he swims like a shark, tries different styles, jumps into the pool and is head to toes a water animal. Tom likes to be in the water, but is much more careful and if he makes his face wet, he quickly runs to dry himself off. He avoids wearing the sleeves; eventually I managed to talk him into using a lifesaver -- after all I have to look after two kids and thus I find it convenient to have at least somewhat secure. James practically refuses to even enter in the pool and plays elsewhere in our back yard. Lisa prefers the lifesaver -- she flaps with her little hands around herself and keeps close watch on everybody's business.

Another alternative for the hot days is a museum. Children Discovery Museum in San Jose has opened a section for kids under four years. A docent watches the entrance and won't let an unaccompanied child out, and so junior can be safely released into this space. True, Tom and Michael managed to open an emergency exit and trigger an alarm, but otherwise our visit proceeded without an accident. I have spent most of the time marching around with Lisa, while monitoring Tom from a distance. Once Lizzy dared enough to venture away into the world, and happily played with Jana (the twins' nanny), who she knows and probably accepted as a relative. Tommy's interest fell on a table with Japanese dining set -- he complicatedly laid out the whole arrangement (plates, spoons) and then sat down and "ate". Playing this game lasted him for a long time -- apparently he's been trained by our frequent restaurant visits and feels at home there. Lisa tried to mimic him, but ended up stacking bowls into towers on the floor.

	ooh... visitors have come... Tom with James

	Can you telephone, boss? Michael and Lisa

Another extremely successful attraction turned out to be a very fine sand box equipped with test tubes, funnels, and a scale. Tommy poured the sand and measured it with the dedication of Master Kelley. Lisa expressed her disdain over the sand's quality and her boring brother, and left to climb on a Chinese dragon. By that time the museum started to fill up with people, and I trumpeted signal to our retreat. Jana was right -- one can last there for the first hour or ninety minutes after opening, then crowds stream in and confusion prevails -- kids push each other, don't have time to play in peace, being interfered with by either overzealous or indifferent parents -- one must time the visit right.

Then we have our outdoors attractions. Thanks to summer inversions, our coast is cold, and we organize family raids to the Pacific. After going there with Franta and his daughters, Tom keeps asking for other kids and claims we go to Franta Cruz. He knows that the town's real name is Santa Cruz, but he finds Franta Cruz obviously funny and so he repeats it. For some reason he likes Franta a lot.

Sometimes we drive all the way to Monterey -- Asilomar offers beautiful beaches. There's also a lighthouse at Point Pinos in Pacific Grove. Tommy has been lately very captivated by fish, ocean and -- lighthouses. The one at Point Pinos should be open to public, and we wanted to show it to Tom from inside. Alas, by ten thirty, when they were supposed to open, no one was around. Poor Tom yanked at the padlock and promised all he could to have us open it -- but parents can't produce miracles and ways of the museum employees are ineffable. After another twenty minutes we gave up and went to the nearby beach, where Tom could throw rocks and Lisa explore shells and sand.

Before lunch we gave the lighthouse another chance -- and lo, it was open. A lady cashier apologized that she was new and was not yet entrusted with keys, and when her colleague with keys failed to arrive in time, she tried to conjure a spare set, and failed that; only when her colleague chose to show up some half hour late, they could open.

	Teaching alchemy

	It's much, much colder at the Pacific than in our Valley

The lighthouse at Point Pinos is the longest functional beacon on the U.S. West Coast. It's been active since 1885. Light for its Fresnel lenses originally came from burning whale oil, which was in the 80's of 19th century replaced by kerosene, and since 1919 by electric light. The first keeper was an Englishman, Charles Layton. His service did not last long -- right in the first year he was killed as a member of a posse during a hunt on a famous bandit, Anastacia Garcia. His widow, Charlotte A. Layton, remained without income, caring for four children. Although it was unusual to employ a woman in those times, after a petition to Lighthouse Department in Washington, signed by Pacific Grove residents, she received the lightkeeper position with a thousand dollars annual pay. This wage considerably exceeded pay of her colleagues on the East Coast -- but most men in California were then trying to get rich quick through gold prospecting and it was difficult to find anybody for a regular, "unadventurous" work. In the year 1860 Charlotte married George Harris, who thus obtained the keeper job.

In 1893 the lighthouse fell again into woman's hands -- freshly widowed Emily Fish became the new lightkeeper after recommendation of her son-in-law Henry Nichols, a lighthouse inspector (her daughter Juliette later became a keeper on Angel Island). Emily served for twenty one years. In this time she hired -- and fired on account of incompetence -- altogether thirty assistants. Ms. Emily must have been a very demanding lady -- and her lighthouse snatched one commendation and prize after another during inspections. Emily Fish improved the lighthouse inside and out. She had the ninety two acres of surrounding sandy land covered with soil and planted gardens. During her service the station was profitable and the lighthouse became a bastion of local social life; in 1906 was the tower damaged by the infamous earthquake, which leveled most of San Francisco. The tower had to be rebuilt, although lenses were unhurt.

Tommy has enchanted the current lighthouse docents so much that he carried away TWO pictures (black and white pamphlets). We're unsure how much he understands of the expert lectures, but his obvious enthusiasm and interest in trips has been very rewarding for us, of course.

	Tom in his element

	Point Pinos Lighthouse

Next week however, events took a much worse turn. It began with Tom's diarrhea. On the first day I regarded his digestive difficulties as effects of his overeating, but when they stayed, it pointed to an intestinal flu. Of course, Lisa followed him two days later. Her career of a flow-through food heater began with a powerful and thorough vomiting all over her bed, around one o'clock in the morning. External temperatures began reaching over 100°F (38°C) and I ran out of distractive entertainment for the kids. Lisa pooped so much that he diapers simply could not contain it -- the next load I usually noticed by a badly smelling yellow liquid sliding into her little shoes. Thus our remote destinations (e.g. ocean coast) became unreachable, just as did our social destinations (museum, friends' houses). Same reason (leaking kids) banned us from our swimming pool. I had the sense of a gross injustice -- a scorcher outside, I am locked indoors with air conditioning (which I hate) running on maximum all day, and with two frisky, bored children, a heap of a (very) smelly laundry and bedding.

After three days (on Saturday) I thought that Tom was quite better and I sent him out with his daddy and granny to "Franta Cruz to see fishes" (= aquarium). The idea to drive out to the ocean in this hot weather, had all the other six millions of our metropolis as well. Sid got stuck on the freeway -- and later had to take a detour, which bypasses Santa Cruz by a lot, so instead of fishes they went with Tom to the beach. Meanwhile I held my mommy-attached, unhappy, sick Lisa at home. The boys returned by four, Tom slept a bit after that. After waking up he was whiny -- and then his complete lunch (rice and chicken) landed between us. I threw out a contaminated rug and began to despair, not knowing that things can get much worse still.

They switched off electricity in the evening. Stoically, we opened our windows and tried to sleep in ninety degrees. We expected that our power would come back in an hour or two as usual. But it was off in the morning. An answering machine at PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric Company - our energy provider) said that due to heavy storms (???there was no rain for at least six weeks and sky has consistently had the color of blue steel) there was a network damage and there would be more information available at two p.m. We cursed the electricity, weather, and sicknesses, and began to pack. In our house was since eight in the morning some deadly eighty, outside temperatures were to climb over 110 -- there was no sense to stay in that. Crowds would not be ready to move so early in the morning, and by ten o'clock we were parking in front of the aquarium -- which sported a sign announcing that they open at noon on Sundays.

A family council quickly decided to collapse on a nearby beach and wait till twelve. It was somewhat colder there, but when we spread a blanked under a tree, the merciless sun baked us like pancakes. Lisa performed an elaborate feat, i.e. poop in one whoop right through her diapers, onesie, trousers, socks, booties and stroller; Tommy whimpered and rolled around the blanket with no real interest in ocean, sand, rocks or any other benefits. Lisa whined, wanting to try to walk, Sid rumbled that his belly was aching and I wondered if smashing windows at PG&E headquarters would qualify as a felony or only as a momentary lapse of reason.

	Surfers' lure

	Tom got carried away by shell hunt at Davenport Beach

By noon we finally got to Tom's favorite aquarium. Tom, however, instead of running up to fishes, collapsed onto the nearest bench and refused to get up. We tried various lures, but his deeply set, lethargic eyes did not respond to anything. We loaded our kids and stuff back into the car (by now quite pungent one -- see Lizzy's beach performance above) and headed for the emergency room. On our way there we checked that we still did not have power at home -- and the PG&E machine now rattled off about Monday as the earliest deadline for any more news (news, not necessarily fixes).

The E.R. had their power on, of course -- and with it, the very pleasant air conditioning. Before we reached a doctor, our kids recuperated enough that they in the midst of my rant about them being lethargic and lack appetite, they started a fight for a banana. When listening to advice like, "make some boiled rice", or "when they don't want to drink, offer them an ice cube", I began to feel like in a bad dream, in which one gets lost in a strange building and can't find a way out of a maze. I still hoped that all this would just be a twist of fate, that we would return home to a functioning house and I would be able to turn up my hated air conditioner, to take the temperature back to a bearable eighty, and then I'd run my bed-ridden Tom some story on TV, I'd cook the silly rice and freeze some juice into cubes...

I was wrong. It was hot at home, messy (we left really quickly in the morning) and all dead. I began to pack things again, this time for a longer stay, and Sid began to call around for a hotel. When we were about to leave, we noticed some PG&E trucks headed to a transformer station in the next street. Men were working there, and said that they were going to check things out and would see if they manage to fix it. Full of hope, we returned home and dropped into our pool. Our still leaking kids got plastic swimming diapers -- we began to resign to many details by then. At six p.m. we had no power -- and no other option than to run away.

We found a hotel and settled in. Quite obviously we were not the only refugees. I don't like hotels, I don't like miniature rooms, where you can't do anything reasonable, I don't like dirty carpets and bathrooms that had been previously used by thousands of people. Yet the hotel was cool and had a washing machine in the hall! Tom was happy to be "on a trip" and both kids went to their beds in the evening, and slept all night.

In the morning we tried our luck at home again -- the situation had not changed. Sid drove off to work and I began to pack for another day -- and also to throw all dirty laundry into a basket -- our garage resembled a gas chamber, I simply could not leave unnoticed all those smelly heaps. There was a microwave and a fridge in our room at the hotel, I began to figure out, how to feed my unfortunate little people, to cause minimum damage to their sick digestive tracts. I also had a conversation with PG&E, which led nowhere. They did not know where the problem was. They were working on fixing it. When they would find the problem, they would fix it. They did not know WHEN that would be. And of course -- no one could give me any advice on what do in 110°F with ill children, who have diarrhea and must not dehydrate. With children who need to get special dietary food. Children that I cannot force myself with upon any relative or friend with power, for they were contagious. If I ever experienced a very bad day, it was this one. I despise the feeling of having no way out, I can't stand having no control. I was completely derailed, which put my kids further out of balance, hence during my packing and phoning they clung to me and yelled, which derailed me further more into a state of mild dementia -- in a mechanism popularly called perpetuum debile...

	Our short visits to the Pacific Ocean coast were the only refreshing moments on our schedule lately.

Eventually I somehow hauled us all back to the hotel room, kids got an improvised lunch, consisting mostly of dry baguette. I managed to wash stuff in the hotel washing machine and only once lose my car keys (I lost them in the morning before). Sid called that he would devote his afternoon to trying to set up a his colleague Klaus's generator (Klaus lives in the mountains and branches often fall on power lines in the winter there, so he's ready to improvise). They called me from the hotel's reception; perhaps they had found my keys (I told them about my previous loss earlier -- I rather did not tell them that I had managed to find and lose them again). I chased away the hotel janitor, who came as children were ready for a nap -- and by two p.m. we all (except for the working Sid) collapsed on our respective beds, exhausted.

In the afternoon Sid called -- and instead of informing me about the generator he said that he was in our house with REGULAR POWER... I must have broken a record in packing and moving things out of the hotel room. A house baked into crispy awaited us at home (the air conditioning could not cool it off in such a short period, but the drop in temperature was perceptible). There was a freezer and a fridge full of things to throw out, plenty of unpacking, but we were AT HOME. Kids rejoiced unbelievably, I was beside myself with joy and began to consider the whole affair as some funny adventure. However, by nine thirty in the evening we were again without power and I found myself back in the mental state of jittery helplessness and anger. The family decision came then to obtain our own generator eventually. We don't have any relatives here with whom we might take up refuge; staying at a hotel would ruin us financially in longer run (6 nights = one generator) -- and the infrastructure in California is quite obviously not ready for any situations even mildly exceeding normal conditions -- what if we had an earthquake? Sid approaches this completely rationally, while I perceive it like a lucky charm -- I bet (and hope) that if we really install a generator, we shall never need it.

Copyright © 2006 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.