The Great "Faery" Hunt

Okay, it was blisteringly hot today, and wild fires were raging.

Nevertheless, it was the summer's last scheduled show in Griffith Park of A FAERY HUNT (before it moves to venues a bit farther afield), so I drove clear across L.A. and up through Koreatown, into Los Feliz, and finally to Fern Dell, to take Thing 1 and Thing 2 to look for fairies.

Thing 2 insisted on going in costume, but that was no problem, thanks to a hand-me-down fairy outfit (thank you, Julia -- a going-into-third-grade, big girl friend who keeps Thing 2 in wonderful outfits). Thing 2 kept telling her brother the faery hunt was for girls, despite my continual attempts to dispel this notion. (Sure enough, there were boys in attendance, though Thing 2 later pointed out, "it was MOSTLY girls").

The "hunt" was really an interactive play with several stops along the way, guided by actors and actresses and even kid actors, in fairy and troll attire, and a couple of fairy "guides." The play had a plot of sorts, just enough for my kids to kinda/sorta follow (they were so busy looking at the costumes and face paint on the actors, they missed a few plot beats). And the actors were sufficiently convincing to the kids that Thing 2 asked me if the fairies lived in the park, though later she asked, "Were they real fairies, or dress-up fairies?"

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We Took 'Em Out To The Ball Game

It kinda felt like a Mastercard commercial -- you know, the ones that always end in "Priceless." Though you could easily substitute "Pricey." Much money was spent bewteen the tickets, the hot dogs, the lemonade, the peanuts (well, they didn't go for the peanuts, which required too much work and then didn't taste sufficiently like peanut butter), the frozen treats. But there we were at Dodger Stadium with our four-year-olds attending their very first major league baseball game, seated between home plate and first base, not exactly in a field box, but close enough for a pretty good view. The kids clutched Webkinz koala bears: the first 15,000 kids were handed the stuffed koalas upon entrance to the stadium, because it just happened to be Kid Appreciation Day. The National Anthem was sung by the crowd, hats on hearts, as an elementary school string ensemble sawed it out on violin (another nod to Kid Appreciation Day), the line-ups were announced, the players took the field, and baseball began. The kids were enthralled.

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Vegas With The Kids: Highlights and Lowlights (Part Two)

All thoughts of Vegas being a family-friendly destination pretty much vanished at 6:25 a.m. on Easter Sunday, when the pounding on the door and the shouts of "Metro Police!" awakened us. Burly officers then hustled into the room, turning on all the lights. To be fair, once they spotted the sleeping kids on the pull-out couch in the suite, they switched the lights off and conducted their search by flashlight. But it was a post-dawn full room search, bathroom and balcony included. I sat up in bed while my husband, who'd let the cops in, dealt with them, and managed to blurt out, "What's going on?"

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Vegas, Babies, Vegas? (Part One)

We took a long weekend over spring break -- the Passover/Easter weekend -- and went to Vegas, Baby, Vegas ... with two four-year-olds.

No, it's not exactly the first thing you think of when you think of family-friendly vacation destinations. In my parents' day, it was known jokingly as Lost Wages, but gambling is just item on its present-day menu of vices in which to indulge. Families trudging from one hotel to another on the sidewalks of the famous strip must run the gamut of street hawkers pushing "escort services" -- "Girls, Girls, Girls In Twenty Minutes," read their t-shirts -- handing out cards with phone numbers, past the blinking signage advertising all-you-can-eat buffets, and through the throngs of tourists clutching chilled alcoholic fruity drinks in brightly-colored, far-too-large novelty cups. And that's just what families experience outside. When they walk through a Vegas strip hotel to get to or from a parked car, a restaurant, or the monorail, they experience half a lifetime of second-hand smoke inhalation.

But despite all the negatives, Vegas beckoned anyhow, because two seventy-something-year-olds -- grandparents to Thing 1 and Thing 2 -- make thrice-yearly visits to it, all the way from New York City. Apparently, sometime after Americans turn sixty-five, the slot machine switch turns on in their brains, and Vegas becomes as powerful a draw for AARP members as the early-bird dinner special at the local diner.

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Fun On A Budget

Recession got ya down?

Try planning a family outing to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Adult admission: $23.95 Kids three and up: $11.95. Then there's parking. Let's say, for argument's sake, it's six bucks (I can't remember but that sounds about right). So for a family a four, the privilege of looking at fish in tanks for a few hours costs upwards of seventy-five dollars.

Recession got you even more down?

Now you have some idea of why we spent last Saturday somewhere else: the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium. Adult admission: five dollars (suggested donation). Kids: a dollar (suggested donation). Parking: we spent three bucks. Total expenditure for the privilege of looking at fish in tanks for a few hours: fifteen dollars.

Suck on that, Aquarium of the Pacific.

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"Take Me To The Warm Snow"

Living in Los Angeles is sometimes hard for a couple of transplanted New Yorkers. After many many years as Angelinos, Late Blooming Mom and Dad still miss certain things about the east coast, and snow is one of them.

Mind you, we don't miss it enough to relocate. Grandpa, on the phone or on email, keeps reminding us of how he has to ask a neighbor to shovel his front walk since his back is no longer up to the task. Grandma is notorious for planning her winter around slot tournaments in Vegas so she can escape the brutal weather for a little while, at least. Today I spoke with a friend back east who elected to stay home all day yesterday because it had been too damn windy outside, and where she lives -- Vermont -- a windy day can make an otherwise livable temperature sub-zero.

But there's something about bundling up in hats, scarves and gloves, then crunching through powdery snow on the ground, taking a brisk walk through air so chilly you can see your breath, that's positively joy-inducing.

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Wish I'd Had A Camera When ...

>Thing 2 sat in a bumper car last Sunday, for the first time, in the kiddie bumper car section at the Santa Monica Pier, and like several of her classmates riding in bumper cars for the first time, had no idea what to do. For the first few minutes, anyway. Her classmates were the same way. For a few moments that seemed suspended in time, in a sort of slow-motion slapstick, they sat behind the wheels of their cars, hemmed in and a bit confused. Then it dawned on them that they could turn the wheel and push the pedal. This level of autonomy in a moving vehicle was clearly intoxicating. Soon one kid had broken free of the pack, then another. But Thing 1 somehow managed to move only one way: in circles. Late Blooming Mom and Dad were in stitches. Thing 1 was simply delighted, and continued her circular ways for some time, not at all bothered. Eventually she broke free of the pattern, after receiving a few bumps. Then she was like a teenage driver unleashed on the freeway for the first time. Okay, not exactly. But she did land her share of bumps. And when it was all over, she was eager to try it again.

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Boats, Kitsch, And Old School Fun

When I was a kid growing up in Manhattan, my dad would take us to the New York Boat Show every other year or so. It may seem incongruous going to a convention hall filled with pleasure boats and motor yachts in the middle of New York City. We didn't get on boats very often, save the Staten Island Ferry, or the occasional jaunt on the yacht leased by the radio station where my dad worked. And on the latter, we basically cruised up and down the Hudson and East River. So we weren't exactly big boaters.

But the boat show was a kids' delight.

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