Minnehaha Falls

*This history/geography lesson is thanks to Wikipedia.

Minnehaha Creek is a tributary of the Mississippi River located in Hennepin County, Minnesota that extends from Lake Minnetonka in the west and flows east for 22 miles (35 km) through several suburbs west of Minneapolis and then through south Minneapolis. Including Lake Minnetonka, the watershed for the creek covers 181 square miles (469 km²). The creek might have been unremarkable except for the 53 foot (16 m) Minnehaha Falls located near the creek's confluence with the Mississippi. The site is not far from Fort Snelling, one of the earliest white settlements in the region.

While the name is often translated as "Laughing Water", the correct translation is "curling water" or "waterfall". The name comes from the Dakota language elements mni, meaning water, and ȟaȟa, meaning waterfall.[1][2] Thus the expression "Minnehaha Falls" translates as "Waterfall Falls". The "Laughing Water" translation comes from Mary Eastman's book Dacotah, published in 1849. On the Fort map of 1823, the falls were named Brown's Falls, in honor of United States Army commander Jacob Brown, who was commander-in-chief of the army since 1814.[3] The Dakota called Minnehaha Creek, "Wakpa Cistinna", meaning "Little River".[2]

Today CiBaby and I went off with our buddies to Minnehaha park and falls, which was really roaring today (as pictured above). Here we are in all of our glory...it was a beautiful day!

Afterwards CiBaby and I copped a spot at Sea Salt Eatery just before the lunch rush and had a lovely mother/daughter lunch.

Okay?

Moooommommommom mama mommom

That's the lovely sound I woke up to this morning. Thankfully my chipper chickadee woke around 7 AM and not 4 AM like during the last week...dang birds and sun.

I staggered into her room, took CiBaby out of her bed and went to sit/lay on the floor with her. While I was laying back I conked my head on her rocker. "Ouch!" I said. She looked at me and said, "otay? otay?" She got up, walk back to were my head hit, still asking if I was okay, helped me up (albeit grabbed a huge chunk of my hair to help me up...we'll work on that) and patted me on the back. "Otay?"

My sweet girl.

Odd products

On Wednesday, Auntie, Grams and I were going through some of Grams treasures to put into a garage sale on Thursday*. During that time I came upon a container that looked like those disposable face cleansing cloths but it said Palmolive on the lid. Disposable dish cloths** with dish soap soaked in and dried??? Why?!? Just in case you want to take some on the plane, but you can't carry a bottle of dish soap measuring under 3 oz? Dishes on the fly?

I am not into disposable products*** at all, but one thing I hate more than disposable products is getting ride of perfectly usable items just for the sake of being greener. So I brought them home.**** Sure they work, but they still puzzle me.

*I only sold about 5 items all day, and got one of CiBaby's super cute, never been worn shoes stolen. I must have been too "pricey" for those thrifty shoppers.
**it looks like Palmolive stopped making this handy product. Who would have thought?!
***I was a very overwhelmed new mom that uses disposable diapers (but I don't like it), but I'm slowly changing over to cloth.
****I suppose we could have put them in the sale for one of those cheap bastards to buy for a nickle...or bargain us down to a penny. yesh.

Hula baby

As the vast majority of you know, I have a thing for Hawaii. I love it. Everything about it. It's heaven to me. Even CiBaby's room is decorated in the beach/Hawaii theme. Completely coincidentally (or not!), CiBaby became a U.S. citizen in Hawaii, as it was our entry point into the U.S. from China.

We have a Disney sing along tape that CiBaby just adores. Included in the songs is Pearly Shells. T-Daddy told me the other day, but I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, she knows most of the moves to the song!

She's a hula baby at heart, just like her Mama. Coincidental? I think not.

The caffeine cleanse

I have recently decided that I've been drinking too much caffeine. Coffee in the AM (a 4-cupper pot), a diet Coke or two in the early afternoon, plus a cup or two of tea in the late PM. Yeah, too much caffeine.

First I ran out of coffee and kept forgetting to pick it up at the store. Then diet Coke, as of Monday, and now I'm just down to tea (mostly green)...which I'm okay with. BUT I have a MASSIVE headache today, that I'm sure a cup of coffee or diet Coke would take care of, but neither is close at hand. I think once it's under control I'll be able to add a cup of coffee back into the rotation, however, for now it's only tea.

I know it will get better, but for now, think headache free thoughts for me!

Really, need I say more?

Rainy day

With a very grey sky this morning, we got a couple runs down the slide before the rain started, thankfully! After that, it was the library, DQ and create your own fun in the living room, as our play date was rained out.

And whomever invented "dip" deserves a huge kiss!

While I was out

As I previously posted, there was an 8x10 picture of me roaming about the city in CiBaby's bag...just incase she needed to see Mom. I also watched movies with CiBaby and T-Daddy. No wonder I was so tired when I got home, I was living a double life!

Throughout my trip I "talked" to CiBaby on the phone a couple times a day, listened to her jabber along while walking to the slide and got hung up on, by accident.

On the day I was coming home T-Daddy was taking my picture out of the bag and said to CiBaby, "Who is this?" Without missing a beat she replied, "My mom." (He called me right after that to tell me :-) If that doesn't just make a mother crumble, and her heart just sing at the same time, I don't know what else would.

Out and Back

"East is East, and West is San Francisco"~O.Henry

A rough start

Our plane was delayed for a couple of hours due to storms on the Tundra late last week. While it's not such a big deal normally, when you're due to arrive at 11:30 PM PT but then arrive at 1:30 AM PT is tough. Especially when your wonderful friends are picking you up at the airport and it's 2 time zones behind you. Add that to a crabby flight attendant and a guy behind you that "doesn't feel well, at all," right after you take off, it makes it for loads-O-fun. Several hours of sleep and a delish breakfast the next morning erased all from the night before to start off a very fun filled and relaxing long weekend with friends.


Previously I stayed in the Cottage but this time I made my way up in the world (literally) and stayed in the Aerie (upper left door), a private location reserved only for special guest (thanks Suzanne and Terry, it was wonderful!) I had my own apartment, which was very remminicient of our first, to myself, where I could leisurely eat huge bowls of fresh fruit without having to share, drink tea and do whatever I pleased...which included wandering the garden in the early morning.









"The San Francisco Bay Area is the playpen of countercultures." ~R. Z. Sheppard, Time magazine

Where else but San Francisco...

do you see a pair of ruby red, patent leather jazz shoes go walking past you while you thaw out in the car for a few? on. a. man.

Follow that up with a couple DELISH blood orange margarita's at Harry's Bar (on Fillmore) and dinner at Via Veneto...and you have one great evening!

Saturday we meandered on over to the Ferry Building and the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market (I'm always a sucker for farmer's markets)...and I say meandered since first we lost keys, then the parking places at BART with all of the bird poop, the ring stand waylaid us for quite some time and FINALLY we got to the market, all while having a great time. We found the most beautiful heirloom tomatoes and basil (which ended up being a HUGE part of our dinner, along with the outstanding Duckhorn wine), wonderful cherries and rose sugar (I'm going to come up with a martini to use it! I promise to post the recipe later). Starving, we had a yummy BLT at Lulu Petite and desert at Miette (Ker, we didn't see Al this time). And while a particular tourist (not moi, of course) was extremely rude at Miette's counter she did add a lot of colorful commentary and amusement to our weekend.

Time at the store is always detrimental to my pocketbook but oh so wonderful for the soul and stack of gifts to give! I'm not going to bore you (ha!) with the deets on all the products, but I was able to knock off Father's day, a graduation gift, some birthdays, misc and great things for CiBaby and myself, of course.

Sunday was filled with Dim Sum at Legendary Palace in Oakland and wandering through the markets. I wanted to pick up some lotus root to try and make T-Daddy's most favorite thing he had in China, but I wasn't sure how well it would travel, with me that is. There were a lot of really interesting ingredients there, some I recognized and have use, some I haven't. We had a bit of Peets, watch a great flick (Once, very cute), had wonderful wine, great conversation and great friends.

Monday we ventured on up to Napa Valley. We made a few quick stops but ultimately ended up in St. Helena. It is such a beautiful town. The car registered a mere 97F degrees...we feared all of my lovely chocolate would melt into an unrecognizable puddle before bringing it home and presenting it. As there is no such thing as having too much chocolate, we stopped at Woodhouse Chocolate and got some extremely decadent morsels. On to the Duckhorn Vineyard (pictured) for some sampling. I highly recommend the 2005 Duckhorn Vineyards Napa Valley Merlot and the 2005 Goldeneye Anderson Valley Pinot Noir, both superb flavor.



"San Francisco has only one drawback. ''Tis hard to leave"Rudyard Kipling

An exciting finish

As if the whole long weekend wasn't fun and exciting enough, our trip back into the city from Napa Valley took MUCH longer than we had anticipate. We raced under the Golden Gate bridge, through SF and made it to the airport JUST in time. I've done a lot of traveling in my time but never, ever have I gotten to the airport with only 25 minutes until departure. Thankfully it was a quiet time and I got through check-in and security in no time. It was a good thing I was wearing my running flip-flops.

Once we were in the air I was able to russel up some free wine for myself and one of my row mates from the very nice male flight attendant using my feminine wiles and my handy-dandy watermelon hair clip. We sipped Chardonnay and ate delicious chocolate. What an end to a great trip.

It was a wonderful trip, filled with memories I will treasure forever...and just what the doctor ordered. Thanks C and B! (and T-Daddy for organizing it)

Much love, XXXOOO .

"Bah Bye Mama, mah!"

(mah = the sound CiBaby makes when she gives me a kiss)

This evening I leave to have a long friend's weekend in the Bay Area (T-Daddy thought I needed a break from being "Mama" 24/7). This will be the first time since October 15, 2007 that I have been away from CiBaby. Right now I'm okay with it...but ask me later how I'm doing.

We talked with our social worker about ideas for easing separation and one of her suggestions was to have an 8x10 picture of ourselves so when we "talk" on the phone she can see a picture of us. True to form and style of her room, I found pictures of myself and T-Daddy in Hawaii to enlarge and frame.

I'm sure T-Daddy and CiBaby will be just fine. It will be good daddy-daughter bonding time.

Brain Melt

"aaaatch?" "aaaatch???" "der seee issss!!!"

(translation - watch? watch? there she is!)

I now know a lot more Shirley songs than I ever did before. It's a good thing they are all upbeat songs with good messages as CiBaby would watch/listen/sing/dance to this thing all day if she could. Breakfast with Shirley, what could be better?!

"Where in the world...

have you been?" you say.

"What in the world have you been doing?" you ask.

Well, let me show you.











Later next week:
...more weeding