Cool Spider, Hot Coffee and A Babysitter

The time has changed so now it stays lighter much later and the weather has warmed up. We've been jogging and hiking a lot more these past few weeks and it has been a treat. (That's Griffith Park at right)

We live close to Ernest E. Debs Park which is a huge reserve with a lake, lots of trees and paths and great views of downtown LA, South Pasadena, Glendale, Highland Park, Alhambra and beyond. The other day while hiking there we saw a spider that I happened to notice looked bumpy -- a little like a pine cone. Upon closer observation we found that the body of the spider was covered in babies who would periodically jump off and scurry away. Isn't that odd? I've never seen anything like it!

I have also trekked to Cycleway Coffee, which is kind of like a Starbucks -- expect that it is in our neighborhood! It's a first for us to have somewhere to get coffee that we can actually walk to. It takes about an hour round trip (not counting any time actually spent in the coffee shop,) and it's a pretty good workout too because there are a lot of hills.

The image at the right is from a hike I took to the South Pasadena water tower. I live din that city most of my life and had never been up there before. It was nice.

We have a babysitter tonight and so we are going to a wine bar and bistro called 750 ml. I am quite sure that it will be overpriced, but I'm looking forward to going somewhere that I would NEVER take my kids too and where I am pretty sure no one else would have the audacity to bring their kids to. Hey, I need a break.

Snuggle Time

My son woke up this morning and insisted that I get back in bed for snuggle time. Well, you got it buddy! Why can't he be like that all the time?

Yesterday Mia pointed at something and said "dah!" I turned around and sure enough, there was a dog... This was impressive because I had spent 20 minutes last Friday trying to teach her the word. Then she said it again just a few minutes later and pointed at another dog! Meanwhile, "Mama mama mama" has come to mean, not only me of course, but also, Daddy, and I want (fill in the blank).

Mia doesn't walk with her hand up in the air anymore. Now she just looks like a little drunk femal leprechaun tottering around. Very cute!

Jared likes to make "fire come out of his knees."

Jed is working out and running again.

And someone is crying during nap time. Damn!

I'm the Last of A Dying Breed

Natural born redheads may be extinct by 2010. So, quite literally, as a natural born redhead with no carrot-topped kidlets, I am the last of a dying breed. According to researchers from the United Kingdom's Oxford Hair Foundation the recessive gene for red hair is being dominated by darker shades through intemingling.

Currently, less that 4% of the world's population are natural redheads. I read that something like only 1% of the world's population have completed a marathon... since I've done both, I must be really rare!

In light of this news about natural redheads' diminishing prowess on the planet, I got my hair dyed... albeit a brighter shade of crimson. As my little rocker tells me, "Mommy, you're on Fi-re!"

It's interesting being a natural redhead. My whole life people always remeber me as the girl with the red hair. My friends will back me up when I say it is unquestionably how I nabbed as many guys as I did given my awkwardness in our teen years. There is just something about red hair...

Here's a weird tidbit. My husband only had one other long-term, live-in type girlfriend.. she had red hair. Wanna get even weirder? His mother has red hair too.... Isn't it kind of Oedipal that he married a girl with red hair? One more odd tidbit, our surname "Unrot," his father's last name, means "without red" and yet, both his father and he married women with red hair. Bizarr-o.