Portraits by Tessie

Tessie's been making some attempts at representational art lately. Above are a portrait and a self-portrait. I know; could have fooled me, too. That thing that looks like a spoon? That's the self-portrait, "Tessie in a Dress," according to the artist.

The other is a portrait of "Chris." It took us a little time to nail down who Chris is, and that's the real reason I'm posting this. At first, we assumed Chris was a colleague in her pre-school, but Tessie set us straight on that: "Chris who was here," she said, meaning our house guest of last June, an old friend of mine from college who came out to look for a job here in California. (Joke's on him: there are no jobs in California. Employment is sooo 2008.)

"You mean Mr. Chris, who gave you puzzles?" I asked, referring to the jigsaw puzzles he sent Tessie as a thank-you gift. (She loves jigsaw puzzles, by the way.)

"Yes." I am not going to begin to speculate as to why she chose to depict Mr. Chris with a definite frown and what appears to be a dunce cap on his head.

Hallowe'en Recap

Before the event recedes too far from memory, we should get some details from the past Hallowe'en recorded.

Tessie, a strong believer in recycling, joyfully reprised last year's personification of the Pumpkin Fairy. She'd probably be perfectly happy to wear the same costume again next year, if only she would stop growing. (That's not likely, though.)With the 31st falling on a Saturday this year, Hallowe'en became a two-day event here in town. Friday, a few blocks of downtown were barricaded off and our fine local merchants gave out candy to throngs of kids.

Some businesses that perhaps should not be so cavalier about the distribution of their assets participate: Even our local dive bar (the one that appears frequently in the Police Blotter for closing-time altercations) gets in on the act, and ignores its own sign: We decided to forgo the costume contest this year; after all, Tessie was reusing last year's non-winning, store-bought costume. Maybe next year. Instead, at Tessie's suggestion, we chose to end our day with a visit to the town's other watering hole, the one with the long tap list and the short arrest history.

The next day was Hallowe'en, so we got our jack-o-lanterns prepared. Tessie drew their faces on with marker, her mother did the cutting, and I made banana margaritas. The pumpkins turned out great (see photo at top); the margaritas, well, ehh. (Not that Tessie got to try them.)

So once again she donned her costume and we set off around the neighborhood while Tessie's Mom stayed behind to distribute our candy.

Some of our neighbors' decorating efforts easily surpassed ours: Surprisingly, many of the houses we visited on our route were empty, but their owners had left bowls of candy out for self-service. The surprising part was that there was still candy in them when we got there; the even more surprising part was that Tessie left some behind.

After almost an hour of trick-or-treating, Tessie's candy pumpkin slipped from her grasp, too heavy for her to hang on. So, a successful Hallowe'en! (Tessie gets two pieces each night, if she finishes her dinner. At our current rate, she'll still have candy left in March.)

P is for Physics

Actual conversation with my three-year-old, shortly after sunset on a recent evening:

T: "Mommy, look! Real clouds!" [ed. note: while the Station Fire was raging, we were making a distinction between the columns of smoke sent up by the fire, and "real" clouds]

Me: "I see. Aren't they pretty?"

T: "Yes! They're orange and blue! Why?"

Me (thinking): "Umm... Well, when the sun is setting, the light has to go through more air in the atmosphere, and it bends differently, and that makes it orange. Bending light makes different colors."

T: "Yes! Like a rainbow!"

Wow. Simple association (different colors = rainbow), or profound insight into how refraction works?

P is for Precocious

After a round of singing the Sesame Street classic "C is for Cookie," and including variants like "T is for Tessie":

Tessie: C is for cookie, that's good enough for me... C is for cookie,
that's good enough for me... P is for pneumonia, that's good enough for me...

Tessie's Mom: Did she just say "P is for pneumonia?"

Tessie's Dad: Yes, she sure did.

Tessie: I'm a strange child.

And there you have it.

(Credit/responsibility/blame for this must go to the Barenaked Ladies song "Crazy ABCs" on the Snacktime album, which Tessie greatly enjoys.)

Brewers - Tigers

We didn't celebrate Tessie's birthday with just cupcakes and a haircut, of course. That was just Day One of Tessie's Birthday Festival. (Despite the title of this post, though, we didn't follow up with a baseball game.)

The morning after her actual birthday, we piled into the car and set out. First stop? A brewery. Stone Brewing in Escondido, CA, to be precise. O.K., so Tessie still has 18 years to go before she can get any enjoyment out of that, but we took the tour anyway. Standard stuff, but mixed with Stone's own particular attitude. The beers are fine, but they try a bit too hard to be outrageous, with brews named "Arrogant Bastard Ale" and "Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale," and they push their recipes to the limit, confronting your palate with an overload of hops, or bitterness, or both, simply because they can and brag about it later. They seem to view brewing as an extreme sport.

We also had a snack in their outrageously expensive restaurant. Two appetizers + two beers + milk for Tessie + tip = over $40.00! Yikes!

These fermentation vessels, if I am remembering this correctly, hold 12,500 gallons each. Our tour guide made that somewhat more comprehensible: if you wanted to drink one dry, that would mean drinking a six-pack worth of beer every night for 65 years.


Anyway, that's not why we went to Escondido. The real object of out visit was to take Tessie to see her favorite animal, the tiger. (Tiger starts with T, Tessie starts with T. We're pretty sure that's why.) So we got ourselves memberships in the San Diego Zoological Society. We'll certainly be visiting their famous Zoo at some point, but this trip was to their slightly less famous Wild Animal Park.

Begun as a breeding facility serving the zoo, the park opened to the public in 1972 as an attraction in its own right. The animals there are mostly African species, like these elephants:

There's also a petting zoo. Tessie likes petting zoos:

Most of the animals are large enough that they require lots of area to roam. There's a tram ride called the "Journey Into Africa" that carries visitors around the otherwise inaccessible parts of the park to view the larger animals. Here Tessie is waving to a giraffe:

We could have taken the hot-air balloon ride, but weren't quite sure how Tessie would react. We also saw "Dino Mountain," an assortment of foam-rubber animatronic dinosaurs that Tessie seemed to enjoy, especially the one that spat water at us.

There are tigers as well, in the Asian animals area. Regrettably, they were so far back in their enclosure, and so well hidden in the shade, that we're not sure Tessie actually saw them. So we made sure she got a close-up look at one:

She seemed satisfied with that, just as she seemed to enjoy the whole trip. Her favorite part was feeding the ducks in the park's central lagoon. Don't worry - there is extensive video, which will be shared soon.