still picking out a paint color
The other day I was pulling some recent video off the camera and came across this hike we did sometime last spring. At the time, we thought the sour weather was a just a late-season squall passing through. So much for that theory.
Nonetheless, I thought this was too cute not to share. It also shows just how beautiful the Marin Headlands are in the spring.
We take our ice cream pretty seriously around here. I’m a purist: vanilla, chocolate, a limited palette of toppings and stir-ins. In a dish; always in a dish. Jody thinks I’m boring. She’d rather be elbow deep in a waffle bowl of toasted coconut almond fudge-bunny truffle surprise (recipe forthcoming). It’s these little differences of opinion that keep our marriage passionate.
Our last field trip before Jody went into labor with Autumn was a visit to Bi-Rite Creamery on a sunny September day. An auspicious beginning? Not wanting to spoil our dear child before she could appreciate this frozen splendor and glory, we waited nearly two years to introduce her to ice cream. Part of the delay was my insistence that we offer her the best ice cream I know.
Now this may reek of conceit, but I know of no better ice cream than the dark chocolate I make a few times each year. It’s not my recipe. That honor belongs to Mr. David Lebovitz, or D-Leb as I call him. His chocolate ice cream recipe from The Perfect Scoop is simply the most indulgent thing to ever grace our freezer. Not the best chocolate ice cream or the best homemade ice cream. It’s simply the best ice cream I’ve ever had. Period. Hyperbole be damned.
I wanted to wait for a perfect summer day. Maybe a backyard dinner on a late summer evening. But this summer has been anything but. Foggy, misty, and just damned cold. Mark Twain was right. We couldn’t wait forever. Last week, I made a batch with the best ingredients I know: Straus cream, Scharffen Berger chocolate, extra-dark Dutch cocoa, fresh Petaluma eggs.
Autumn can be particular about what she’ll eat. But after tonight I can say with confidence that she is absolutely a Pritchard. She’s got the face to prove it.
My little girl can count to one. Starting at five, four, three, two…
One of Autumn’s favorite books is Curious George and the Rocket. In this weighty tome George is selected to become the world’s first space monkey. The technical inaccuracies of the book will be forgiven considering its pre-Mercury publication date (1957). Of course, Autumn’s favorite part is the countdown and BLAST OFF!
Our trip to watch the (repeated, failed, painful) STS-128 launch attempt rekindled my interest in the space program, which had waned a bit since its apogee during my SpaceCamp and Estes rocket days. Since then, I’ve been watching the shuttle launches online and Autumn loves to join me. Recently, we watched the successful test of the PAD-1 Abort and STS-132. And the Curious George book is in heavy rotation.
Autumn’s generation will consider civilian space travel an exciting and totally accessible activity. For now, books and videos will have to do. Lately, she’s points to the computer several times a day and says “Blast Off!” It’s enough to make a geek dad cry.
Photo: This is the nozzle of an F-1 rocket engine, the single most powerful rocket engine ever built. It was used to take a couple fellas to the moon back in the summer of ’69. I took this photo forty years later, during our trip to the Kennedy Space Center.
Last year was Autumn’s first Christmas. But at three months, I think the sights, sounds and smells of the season come off more like a heavy acid trip than a time of joy and celebration. This year she was aware of the celebration, and it was so much fun to include her in the ritual of the season. Also, we simply know her much better than we did a year ago. We decided to try something different to record the celebration: a time-lapse video of Christmas morning and some preparations from the night before. It allowed us to enjoy each other without being stuck behind a camera. This might become a tradition.
May not be 100% appropriate for Santa’s faithful.
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Chapter One of our origin story centers around the Fiesta Bowl, an ill-advised lodging choice and ample sofa space at my friends Pete’s house in Tempe, AZ. Over the past nine years, we’ve traveled to watch the Beavers play at Cal, Stanford, Fresno State, USC, UCLA, the Fiesta Bowl, the Emerald Bowl and a very memorable trip to Baton Rouge, LA. Oddly, we’ve never watched an OSU game together in Corvallis, but we’re going to address that in 2010. Autumn attended her first OSU game in utero and was born a few weeks later during halftime of a huge upset win over USC. Our story is inextricably tied to Oregon State football.
To say we were excited about Autumn’s first live Oregon State football game is a huge understatement. OSU and Cal are both great teams, with OSU exceeding expectations this year and Cal falling a bit short. Memorial Stadium in Berkeley is a favorite venue and gracious friends (Cal alums) invite us to their tailgater every other year. Our outlook was realistic. Three-plus hours in the bleachers isn’t terribly stimulating for a one year old. If Autumn managed two quarters of ball, we would give ourselves a W.
No offense to Jacquizz, but Autumn takes MVP for the day. Geared up in orange and black, she managed two hours of tailgating and four quarters of football with minimal fuss and a passing interest in what was happening on the field. And the Beavs kept their Memorial Stadium winning streak alive. Final score: OSU 31, Cal 14.
So much change lately. It seems that every day brings something new. Autumn decided she wasn’t going to let her first year pass without a few more notable milestones.
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Kids who grow up in San Francisco are bound to have a poorly calibrated seasonal clock. Summertime in this city brings blustery fare, marked by ominous fog banks that creep their way across the city every afternoon. In July, the height of summer is usually greeted by grey skies and hordes of rosy-cheeked tourists wandering about in hastily purchased “Escape the Rock” sweatshirts. It’s not until the late, lovely days of August that we join the rest of our statesmen in a celebration of bluebird skies and clement days.
Crissy Field overflows with families and Golden Gate Park plays host to the weird and wonderful: Paddle Boats on Stow Lake, Roller Disco at Sixth Avenue and music at the Polo Fields. We enjoyed this last weekend of August and the heatwave it brought. Autumn has many more weeks to smile at the sun before her namesake arrives, and the temperature mellows. Alas, she’s still a bit young to enjoy that San Francisco summertime rite: the It’s-It ice cream sandwich. We have to save something for next year.
Our plans for Autumn’s first backpacking trip were foiled back in April, when she came down with a cold the day before our planned departure. The Coast Camp at Point Reyes had been chosen for nostalgic reasons as much as practical ones. Not only is it close and comfortable, but Jody and I took our first backpacking trip together there back in 2001. The trip was on our calendar since she was in utero, and the decision to be responsible parents stung a little bit.
Looking at our calendar, the weekends through May and June were laden with events and trips, leaving little time to spend on the trail. But one option held promise: Montana. We were planning a trip to Billings for Doug & Jordan’s wedding. It seemed like a no-brainer to tack an extra day on the trip and explore a bit of the Big Sky state. So we did. Doug and Jordan pulled together some great recommendations and we found ourselves blissed out in the Beartooth Mountains. We spent just one night at the Woodbine Campground (along the Stillwater River), but the drive over Beartooth Pass and back along the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River rounded out an excellent little road trip.
It will come as no surprise that the occasion was well documented and captured a bit of the fun we had with Autumn’s first night in a tent.
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