"Culture day."

So, since Der Ex would be spending her time at the Grind, it was my chance to get a look at what Yamaarashi-chan's school is like from the inside on "culture night," which is a voluntary, school-organized activity night where kids come to learn about "the culture of her school."

Apparently, despite her origins with American parents of Danish, German, Italian, and English descent, my daughter's culture has nothing to do with Europeans. Her school, a public school I must say, is deeply steeped in Native American traditions-- to an extent I found offensive. We walked into what Yamaarashi-chan called "The Culture Room," which was laden floor-to-ceiling with pseudo-aboriginal art; button blankets done by former classes, a wolf's skin, and a bear's skin. When I asked Yamaarashi-chan about the skins, she said, "They're Bear and Wolf. When we feel frightened, Bear reminds us to be strong. When we feel like we can't go on, Wolf reminds us that we can."

( To quote Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now, 'That's goddamn pagan idolatry!' )

Vacation Days

Omaha and I have gone on vacation. She picked a lovely inn deep in the woods on the San Juan islands. We hired an overnight babysitter for Kouryou-chan. And we were off.

We drove forever. It took two½ hours to get to the ferry, and another hour to get across the sound to Friday Harbor. By the time we got to the inn, it was quite dark, and the road was short but twisty.

After meeting our hosts and bringing in our luggage, we ran back to town for dinner, finding a little place, a corner place called The Ale House. They had their own beers, claiming it was "too expensive to import beer from America." Their porters was amazingly good when cold and fresh from the tap, but like many porters quickly became bitter as it warmed and was exposed to the air. Still, it was wonderful. Omaha and I went back to the inn, where we, um, "exercised" for quite a while without fear of Kouryou-chan hearing us-- which was utterly wonderful.

18 Miles

After rising this morning, Omaha and I sat out in the Inn's common area and typed away, getting caught up on our journals, both public and private, while I hacked on a segfault deep inside Plotlines. Our hostess came down and cooked breakfast while Omaha and I met the two guests with whom we were sharing the space that day. One was an English teacher and the other was a retrofit engineer with Puget Sound energy. After an amazing breakfast of grapefruit, a waffle, steel-cut oatmeal, and reasonable (but not great) coffee, we headed back into town, where we rented a bicycle for myself. I wanted to bring my own bike but I discovered that the Iguana would require as much money to rehabilitate as to buy a new bicycle. So we left it home and rented.

( And then we were off down the road. )

Homeward bound.

Omaha roused after little over an hour's sleep, after which we went out to dinner at a place called the Downrigger. I had steak; Omaha had clams and mussels. It was marvelous. Afterwards, we went back to the Inn, where foundered on food and exhausted from riding, we decided to just rest. Omaha took a look, restful bath and then watched a bit of television; I hacked on a story, then some code. Plotlines now has two whole working code paths-- not only does the splash page manifest, but it can tell you what it's doing on the fly. And the XML Template Handler now loads the default template and saves it. Whee.

We went to bed.

This morning we roused early, thanks to the shift of daylight savings time. Fortunately, the hostess had also awakened early and made us breakfast-- this time it was excessively rich french toast with apples and brown sugar, and very fresh honeydew. I swooned at the amount of food. The coffee was still thin. I had two cups and, still feeling cold, had a third from the decaf carafe-- and was then informed that "because so many people drank the leaded stuff, both carafes are caffeinated." Great.

Omaha and I lazed about until checkout, enjoying ourselves quietly, snuggling and enjoying the silence without Kouryou-chan. I love her dearly but we so needed to get away from her for at least a little while.

We drove to the other end of the island, where the British had set up their camp during the war. It was much better preserved; Omaha and I hiked the perimeter, which combined with our walk earlier that morning around the Inn property made our legs ache. We drove back to town and got into the ferry line. Omaha didn't feel well at this point; we both suspected the breakfast was too rich for our stomachs, but I seemed to be weathering it better.

The ferry ride over was unremarkable. We played Cosmic Wimpout and watched the terrain go by. The drive home was equally unremarkable.

Can I just say how much I adore the babysitter we hired? She was wonderful. Above and beyond the call of duty, she cooked and cleaned up after herself, made beds... y'know, all we wanted was to make sure that Kouryou-chan was happy and cared-for, but she was great and Omaha and I really appreciated her efforts. Kouryou-chan thought she was the best. And Kouryou-chan was so happy to see us, hugging and kissing. But she knew that we were home, and so she threw an "I want" tantrum that, like normal, didn't go anywhere. She's learning to push her limits. She just not getting anywhere doing it that way.