Kids horsing around.

Vacations had ended and we had returned to the school rhythm. The monotonous getting up (everybody), homework (kids), noon yard duty (myself) was somewhat upset by Hippo's change of job (we hope for better). I continue in training my mare (although I have sometimes the feeling that the mare is training me) and I had finally got around to ordering the un-saddle. For a long time I was pondering whether to buy a saddle — we sub-lease Foxy, she's not ours; the situation can change momentarily — and I hesitate to invest into a saddle that would possibly not fit another horse. Riding an English saddle (what's worse, a jumping one) that we get on loan along with the animal, is not quite suitable for a beginner. A bare back pad fits (almost) all horses and I find it excellent for training. The lack of stirrups deprives you of mechanical aids and eliminates cheating with balance.

In Monterey Aquarium.

What I did not anticipate was the reaction the un-saddle would invoke in our household. I expected the kids to have one look, find out it's nothing for them, and that would be the end of it. Meanwhile they have been saddling each other, watching movies with it, and enjoy its presence in general. Eventually I had to seize it for the mare and subsequently (after use) evict it to the garage.

One day I managed to fall from (after all, real) English saddle, which I used to take out for mountain riding. One colleague in the stables took so much pity on me that she loaned me a western saddle. The more need is there to sometimes ride the horse bare back and return to the basic balance. Foxy seems to respond to merest hints of my legs and my shifting of balance (while, on the other hand, she seems somewhat "hard" in bridle responses), and riding her is an adventure anyway.

Their first unaccompanied ride on a Ferris wheel.

The end of April and thus the end of the ski season was approaching in giant leaps, and my girlfriends and I have realized that we had still not put together a ladies-only skiing trip. Here I must berate my friends — as soon as we picked a date, suddenly every one of them declared that just on that particular weekend they must stay at home and polish the window panes. I keep wondering whether I missed something in my life through not considering window pane care to be sufficiently rewarding activity to prefer it over skiing, or whether window pane polishing is some code word for any secret and highly addictive orgies (that I am not privy to!). Only Vendula stuck unwaveringly to our skiing plan (perhaps she, too, misses out on orgies). Hippo had relatively resolutely declared that I must go, and it surprised me. Perhaps I had not been out for a long time, and he was looking forward to enjoying a weekend with the kids without a mother hovering.

As far as I'm informed, they had a great time — one day they ventured to Monterey Aquarium; on the next day, he kids took their daddy out to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Vendula and I skied on the ever melting snow — it was so slow that we finally had to ski the double black diamond "The Wall" just to get ourselves going. On Saturday, Suchýš joined our ladies-only run, and as a threesome we closed the season with an excellent dinner and beer at Kirkwood Inn.

Lisa horsing around with buckets.

This year's winter was relatively weak — already by the end of April, a few very hot days have come — not in the quantity and intensity to warm up our swimming pool, but I reckoned that we could visit the heated one at YMCA. I checked on their web site that they were indeed open to the public till six o'clock, I even called to make sure we could come — and they said so. Thus I packed swim suits and right after picking the kids up from school, we headed there. I asked a guy manning the lobby desk to guide Tom through the men's showers. You see, last time Tom was with me when we went swimming, for he was about five years old and I could pull him through the women's locker room; now it seemed somewhat dicey — after all, Tom regards himself a big boy already, and following mom begins to smack like embarrassment.

Tom coped with the locker room (it took him about twice as long than me with Lisa, but he's just been this way) and soon we were splashing in the pool. In a short while, however, came pool guards demanding the kids to pass a swimming test, which would give them grounds to be issued swimming passes, which in turn would entitle them to obtain wristbands colored according to demonstrated skills. We managed that as well (both kids are adequate swimmers), and intended to continue splashing in the pool — when suddenly another pool guard appeared, saying that in five minutes, i.e. at three thirty, classes will being and we would have to vacate the pool. By the (unpleasantly) surprised looks of the other pool users I gathered that I was not the only person hitherto convinced that the pool was open till six. I don't have to stress here that the kids did not stop at just looking, for much wailing and moaning ensued (for together all our waiting for Tom getting through the locker room and taking the tests, we had enjoyed altogether ten minutes of regular swimming). And so I endeavored to complain at the desk, where they argued with me that the class must have been long planned and I could not have possibly seen the pool marked as open till six — until they themselves looked it up. I received an apology, but that about all there is (for we pay a flat monthly fee, and I had not paid anything that I could demand back :-)).

Tom and his paper model of Zamboni.

We had to make it up to the kids during the weekend — Hippo, who, unlike his wild name-sakes, does not care for swimming, went to the gym, and I was to splash with the kids again. Fortunately my Hippo does not take long to be finished exercising, and thus I could put the full blame on the kids' father when we had to get out of the water after less than an hour. And thus an infernal plan sprang up in my head — granny! she can go swimming with the kids at YMCA. She would arrive in a few days, and there'd be plenty opportunity to enjoy quality time with the grandkids there (before our own pool warms up).

Granny's arrival was hanging on a thread. Health complications occurred at the last moment and we were waiting for medical tests and a decision whether it was at all safe for her to fly. Fortunately all went well and granny had arrived. Hippo had to go picking her up at the airport, as I was busy helping out at the school (with their mailing paperwork, which somebody has to sort out into envelopes, one for each family), then I had a training session arranged with Foxy, which grew somewhat late due to the fact that Foxy ran away with me. Thanks to the western saddle I managed SOMEHOW to now fall off, but I would never want to repeat the experience. I think it was the first time I really felt how large and strong animals horses are, and when a horse goes out of control, it means a half ton going wild and some little human on its back is a small thing after all. All ended well, I did not fall, Foxy did not get injured, and our trainer did not have a heart attack. After such adrenalin experience, yard duty with three hundreds of first through third-graders, seemed a very relaxing affair. My kids thereafter took part in their soccer class — and then we drove home, where Hippo brought granny in the meantime. There was much joy and cries of welcome, for we had prepared the kids even for the case that the doctors would not let granny fly and she would be bound to postpone.

With granny on Borel Hill.

On Friday I left granny at home with Hippo and took the kids to Nicolas's birthday party. I was somewhat unsure about an event for children that began at seven in the evening, but in the end I had to admit it was perhaps one of the best celebrations we have ever gone to. It all began with pizza at seven o'clock (and I had preventively fed my children dinner, and hence this part was not so much fun for them, the poor things), and then they went skating under the supervision of the two Shark captains (San Jose Sharks are the local hockey team), a.k.a two teenagers dressed in black-and-blue colors. The Sharks' stadium is equipped with buckets (common, large plastic general purpose buckets, turned upside down), totally fascinating our offspring. It's naturally intended as an aid for skating beginners, but it came that while the beginners strove to soon divest of the buckets and skate without their help, our children, who skate quite well, stayed in the beginners' section and horsed around with the sliding plastic cylinders. A birthday cake followed and eventually the highpoint (at least for our Tom) — the kids each assembled a paper model of the Zamboni, and when the real ice maintenance machine rolled out onto the surface, their joy was extreme. Poor driver had to cope with a bunch of youngsters jumping behind the protective glass, each waving his/her paper model. He played his part with dignity, beckoning the children with a majestic (although a trifle tired) wave of his arm.

Kelp.

We took granny to the ocean on the weekend, to let her enjoy the sea again after her central European holidays. And then, traditionally, to our favorite view point on Borel Hill. Finally, I pushed her out with the children to go swimming to the YMCA. They returned some two hours later, kids thoroughly tired and happy, yet in the evening Lisa began to complain about head-aches. Since she had no fever, I reckoned she caught a heat stroke, and sent her resting to her bed. She was ready for a fight in the morning, chasing Tom, and went normally to school, but I had her back by noon, again with head-aches. Fever added self to the mix in the evening, and I had to change my diagnosis from heat stroke to maybe-virosis, letting her stay at home. It was much simpler with granny being around, as one of us could stay home with the Lisa and the other run shopping errands and take Tom out, and thus I kept my cool. When Lisa's fevers continued through Friday morning, I made a doctor's appointment.

Hippo turned unemployed on Friday — having quit his old job and starting in his new one on Monday, and hence it was his turn to take Lisa to the doctor, who checked her out, found no inflammation and announced that it must be some persistent virus and it would pass. Naturally, on Saturday Lisa ran around and jumped, the faded flower languishing on a couch in front of the TV was gone. We took it for a good sign and confirmed our participation in a birthday party of Kašpars' kids at Coyote Point.

Favorite birthday party fun: face painting.

The weather was beautify (which is not always the case by the Bay), and the huge playgrounds had immediately devoured all the children so that we practically did not know they were there; there was meat grilling (Hippo helped), talking, simply groovy. Only Lisa buckled and did not want to eat, so I scolded her and then I became sorry for she looked like a bundle of despair; I took her on my lap and found out she had a high temperature. Yet the party was in full swing, and being thirty miles from home, there was not much we could do. I led Lisa for a while to our car, made her a cot on the back seat, letting her sleep. She recuperated enough to ask for the cake, and so I hoped she just ran too much too soon and it would get better again.

But it did not, even on Monday, and again we went to the doctor's. They, out of despair, ran various swabs and samples — and found urinary tract infection — which the doctor told us over the phone at nine p.m., when results from the lab came back. We let her forward the prescription to a nearby Safeway pharmacy, where I would pick up the pills when they re-open in the morning, and since Lisa was already asleep, we all went, too.

We keep finding various animals at Davenport Landing (photo granny).

I had no idea what a madhouse awaited me in the morning. First, the pharmacy opened only at nine on which I did not count; second, when I came there, the pharmacist was on the phone listening to hold jingles and said that they system was down and he never got any prescription and thus cannot give me anything until he receives a doctor's order. I tried to call the doctors to make them send the prescription to another pharmacy, and left home, furious. The Safeway pharmacist's call caught me there (as he obviously looked up in their re-vived system our address and phone number), saying that the prescription had arrived and that I can come pick the pills up, and I jumped in the car driving like a demon to get there in time before the doctors cancel the prescription for Safeway and order it elsewhere. It all turned out OK, Lisa got her pills, and began to turn for the better.

On Thursday Lisa finally shook off her fevers, began to change into princess' dresses and dance; I reckoned that she was getting healthy again. I sent granny to pick Tom up, but he came home from school missing a sweat-shirt — so I sent them back to find and bring it. Ten minutes later granny called me, with a wail of police sirens in the background, that they had an accident. Till today I keep surprised how cool I stayed — the only problem was making granny tell me where exactly they were: she was in a shock, could not remember the name of the street that she'd been taking daily. Eventually she managed to tell me that they were right past the nearest gas station on the route to school, and there's only one there. I loaded Lisa wearing small, old, thread-bare princess dress and set out.

Granny had managed to tell me that Tom was bleeding from his nose, which may have contributed to my lack of panic. Tom sometimes bleeds from his nose and if that was to be the worst injury of the crash, it seemed not too bad. Tom was sitting on some woman's lap, with bloodies paper napkins scattered around, but otherwise looked quite all right. Then a cute emergency guy told me that Tom will need a transport to a hospital, for his nose was cut, and that it would need a few stitches. Granny was complaining about chest pains; we both gathered it was likely bruising from the seat belt, but still we let granny go with Tom to check whether she had anything wrong with her heart, or maybe cracked ribs.

Rubik.

Around the time when they were loading granny and Tom in an ambulance, the woman, who took care of Tom, disappeared. We still don't know who she is, and neither granny nor I managed to thank her, while it was she who took Tom out of the car, gave him a basic triage, who stayed with him and (apparently) called the police and the ambulance. It pleases me that there are people who help despite never getting any thanks. At that time, the boy who had caused the accident, also appeared briefly. With a new driver's license, he had tried to turn left from a side road onto four-lane main street, unfortunately into the path of granny and Tom.

Swollen Tom with Bryce at a flying festival.

Much paperwork and many tests awaited us in the hospital. Lisa remained in tow, still wearing her princess dress that she plays in, and I was (if I remember correctly) wearing slippers and home-only socks. Eventually Hippo came from work, took Lisa and granny, and began to take care of things that were escaping me at the moment. For example, the crashed car — I had noticed airbags being deployed, but I really did not look for any more damage; I faintly guessed that the front was crumpled and nothing was leaking. I stayed with Tom in the hospital — I agreed with the E.R. doctor to wait for a plastic surgeon to stitch his nose properly. The specialist had to be summoned from his home and took time to arrive.

Tom was most afraid of the anesthetic injection, but the doctor convinced him right away. The greatest surprise was when my son got up after the sewing was done, properly thanked the doctor for a good job, telling him that he was the best doctor he ever met — and was ready to leave. Simply, in the moment his nose was put back in shape and the bleeding was stopped, Tom had calmed down and proceeded as if nothing drastic happened. In the meantime he managed to elicit a promise that he would not have to go to school on Friday (I would not sent him anyway) and that he could get some toy since he handled the pain so well — but what would you not do for an injured child?

Balloon in flight — albeit just a few feel above ground.

All in all I think it was Tom who processed the whole crash very well — we had not slept for several nights, living through situations when you can't fall asleep and when you finally do, you get haunted by nightmares. Tom had obviously not suffered thus, even started to ask on Friday noon to be let to the school to see friends. We did not allow it, but when Rumiko called whether she could visit with Bryce, bringing ice cream, I did not hesitate. I think that curative effects of ice cream had not been scientifically investigated, but when it happens, the research may be rewarded by a Nobel Price. Bryce, having discovered that Tom could talk, walk and play while wearing a large band-aid on his nose, reflected that he himself had twelve stitches on his body (compared with Tom's eighteen), and I had to, for the rest of the evening, prevent the boys from running and horsing around. We need, after all, Tom's nose to grow together, without ripping the stitches apart during some mischief.

Trying to return to normal, we got up on Saturday at 5:45, pulling the kids out of their beds, jumped on our car and still before sunrise we shivered on San Martin airport with hot air balloons. Our old friend and pilot Jeanne came from South Dakota to help with an annual flight festival. So we opted to join her — since Tom (the big Tom, Jeanne's husband, not our Tom) got a job in Dakota two years ago, we had not seen him nor her, and also been missing any ballooning. The festival seemed like a good chance to refresh our friendship and return to the old order.

Kids making balsa airplanes — Tom focused and self-reliant, Lisa with parental help.

Jeanne's balloon stays in Dakota, and public tethered rides were this year provided by Jennifer with her balloon named Rubik. We enlisted kids to "help" (the quotes are necessary, for they are more in the way than being useful, but one has to start learning somewhere), for which they were rewarded by a test flight. Our children had long feared the balloons, and this year for the first time they showed interest to try flying — perhaps under Bryce's influence, who was also present and who's not afraid of anything. In the end Jeanne had to kick them out of the basket — they kept asking for more and more flights, while a large line of general public, waiting their turn for several hours, has formed — all this with quickly dwindling supply of propane gas and increasing wind gusts (balloons cannot fly in a strong wind).

Lisa loves horses, including carved ones.

Finally the propane ran out and we had to tell the unfortunate people who never got to fly, to come next year. Most of them coped well, and I hope that they are going to return (and arrive early to get their chance). We helped pack the balloon and proceeded to breakfast (paid, against our protests, by Jennifer — thanks). Kids refused to eat (having consumed a whole box of cinnamon rolls throughout the morning) and Tom, who even remembers every detail of things that happened three years ago, insisted on going to make balsa airplanes. I sent the kids to the workshop and sat down to my second cup of coffee and pancakes and sausages. After a while, finally done eating, Bryce got up saying he would join them at the airplanes. The balloon crew chatted on and I slowly reckoned someone should check on our offspring.

To my surprise Bryce's airplane was almost finished, while our children sat on their chairs complaining that it was not their turn yet. As a proper protective mother, I got upset. Our kids are nice and polite, and so everybody cut ahead of them and geezers who were supposed to help them with the balsa work, had totally ignored them.
Eventually I had to personally attend to my kids, for it did not seem possible that any of the so called assistants would find time. I had to cut Lisa plane out of balsa; Tom took initiative and showed much skill. I don't know where he's getting it, for neither I nor Hippo show much affinity to handiwork, but Tom loves fabricating and assembling things, and (unlike his confused mother) orients himself in various plans and instruction sheets. What's most important — he had not added any more injury to his eighteen nose stitches, despite wielding a sharp knife!

Sunbathing tortoise in Felton.

At last, all was completed — balloons and airplanes, and we could return home and try to catch up with our sleep deprivation. Tom's face had deflated a bit during the morning — he could barely open his eyes early on, so much (likely as a result of the surgery) his faces had swollen. The swelling had receded during a day, and was gradually replaced by huge blue bruises around his eyes.

Tom had deflated, but he got extra color instead.

On Sunday we chose a slow and laid-back program, keeping in mind that Tom needed to take it easy — a walk in Felton's redwoods. We visited the local steam engines, tortoises in a pond, hiked the redwood loop — and on the way back the poor injured kid climbed on the covered bridge railing. I thought I would add him an injury of my own — for three days we had been imploring him to not climb, run, fight or fool around, so that his STITCHES HOLD; he was to avoid falling or colliding — and what does our Tommy do? He climbs up on a narrow beam of the bridge railing, to walk on it. True, there was the road on one side, and on the other side he would roll down a small bank into the pond, but still. Anyway, it proves that Tom was not considering himself an injured individual, and that he had most likely already forgotten his trauma.

With yellow-black eyes he then returned to school on Monday, but perhaps nobody got frightened by the sight. Everyone at the school knew about the accident — many people had been there, for it happened around school end time and people were driving home; others heard about it from neighbors and friends. I was rather glad that few of them gaped and commented; we did not want to get Tom frightened again after the fact. It was enough we, adults, were already shaken.

Foxy looks great with her new (un)saddle.

Tom's classmates gave him get-well cards, and the school management demonstrated understanding — for the rest of the week, Tom was permitted to spend his break time at the admin office playing Angry Birds on a tablet. After all, kids run in the yard at noon, supervised by altogether seven adults for almost six hundred students, and catching one specific child being too wild or climbing too high, or getting in a way of one of the many energetic soccer, baseball or basketball teams, sounds more like a sci-fi than reality. Then we did not want Tom to suffer in the office, and that's why we let him play games (which we normally regulate). Keeping an eight year old from jumping, running or climbing is practically impossible. As his stitches peel off (being self-adsorbing) and a scar forms on his nose, we gradually relax.

With Mirka at Bear Creek.

When Mirka, a grandmother from San Francisco, came to visit, we took her on a walk around the ranch, to see a sample of Santa Cruz Mountains and the horses. Tom naturally climbed on the first tree he had spotted and when I interjected that he was not supposed to climb anywhere, he said with a genuine teenager-style (eye-rolling) expression and tone: "Puhleese! It's only - like a yard high." In the end we had taken Foxy out, and Lisa importantly let the horse graze (holding Foxy by the halter, and it's clear that Foxy would never volunteer to walk away from the grass; to the contrary — if she decided to move her half-ton somewhere else, our forty pound Lisa would be hardly in a position to stop her); I also had to show the kids where I had spotted the injured raccoon.

Raccoon.

It was like this: after my Wednesday training I was taking the saddle back to the shed and in a dark corner on a cabinet, where a fat black and white cat usually naps, lay a huge, striped "cat". We are friends with local cats, they even bring me dead mice for show and tell to the cabinet, and thus I proceeded to talk to this cat with a friendly voice, until I noticed the robber's mask on its face. To my surprise the raccoon just watched me for a while and then turned over to rest in the cats' bed. He did not let anyone disturb him, even after the every single present human in the stables came to check him out while I was taking a picture. Only back at home I could see an injury on his side on the picture, which would explain his unusual behavior. What had eventually happened to him, we don't know — apparently he had spent the nigh there, ate all the food the cats had in their bowls — and disappeared again. So I hope he lived and this one night in warm and quite with food under his nose had done him well.

We would do well to close down all the hassle around the accident. So far it's been a thousand pages of paperwork, signing, phoning and generally dealing with it. We would also have to cope with having one car less; poor granny's Forester is totally written off. Naturally, given all the possibilities, what MIGHT have happened, a few crumpled parts is only a nuisance, but those parts will be quite missed.