The three of us are slowly working our way back into a "normal" schedule after our return from a trip to California for the first week of October. Joan was attending a conference, and as we thought this might be the closest "holiday" trip we would get we decided to rent a house and get as many people together as possible. By all accounts it was a rousing success.
Personally, having any number of Stone minders there throughout each day allowed me to simply relax and for most of the time do absolutely nothing, which was a welcome change. OK, maybe not nothing: I did drink about 480 bottles of beer and used the smoker each day to ensure there was enough burned meat to feed the masses ... Joan did have a bit of a commute; however, only had to "work" for four of the seven days we were in Cali. Thus some needed time off was enjoyed by her as well.
The trip to and from California did provide some valuable lessons for the two of us: namely relating to Stone. As many have seen and now experienced, he is quite mobile and even more of a wiggly handful. We selected flights over the Pacific that effectively left in the daylight hours in each direction. This combined with being behind the bulkhead meant that there was no real chance of him sleeping much. As he now prefers more food over milk/formula, feeding him can be a bit more challenging, especially on a plane. We were fortunate that on the return flight we had a row to ourselves, so we could lay him in the seat between us, yet with the activity around us he rarely slept for long periods. Thus, we have decided to choose the overnight flights going forward to at least try to maximize his desire to pass out.
On the more positive side of travel, as always Stone is a hit and draws nothing but smiles. And in all honesty, he does travel very well, compared to some of the other screaming babies I heard on the flights. He also knows what the bjorn is - so when I get it down before landing, if he sees it he gets super excited as he knows we are about to start walking somewhere - anywhere - off of the plane. I can set it / him on my lap and he points to the connecting parts, and tries to crawl up and into it so he can personally speed the landing process.
As one can imagine, we came home to a relatively empty fridge and as Joan picked up a bit of a head cold during the travels I decided to travel to Misawa with Stone yesterday to get various supplies including all manner of cold fighting chemicals. On the trip over the mountains I was pleasantly surprised with the clarity of the air and coupled with the fact that there was not a cloud in the sky (thus you had a clear view of the peak that we live near) I thought that I might take Stone up to the top after we got back ... As we came back over the mountains and entered the valley we lived in I was shocked at the amount of smoke and haze. Evidently the trend is to burn the stalks that once held the rice. The rice is harvested with small combines (similar to maze or corn in the states) and the stalks are left in the fields. At least 2/3 of the fields were burning (controlled) and thus you lost any ability to see clearly. To a certain extent can understand the process from a nutrient recycling perspective; yet, from and air quality perspective it makes no sense. There were some folks who were bailing the stalks into hay, and a couple who were simply tilling them back into the ground, but most were burning. No wonder they wear masks, as the smoke permeates everything. Just another small observation of the some of the ironic ways of living here.
In any event, as I type the fires are out as we are under a large rain cloud, which should hang around for a couple of days. Then we will begin the progression through fall toward winter and snow.
Here are some photos from the California trip: images.
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