The "what I want to be when I grow up" job!!

let me begin with what a pleasant surprise it was viewing my blog with comments!! Thanks guys!! - man though, I guess if I dish it out I need to be able to take some criticism too. I apologize for not blogging enough or razzing cows in western Kansas (it was a shock to see the cattle prisons but I'm sure there are happy cow farms out there too!!). Jill - we miss you too and want to come up to KC at xmas time - we'll work something out. We had an AWESOME time in Dallas (I'll post pics this afternoon), we visited the Zoo, science museum, JFK museum, hockey game, big mall...it was as good as I thought it would be.

Now....the big news.... I got a new job!! I will be the new full time television producer for KPTS (the local PBS station). Man, I am SO excited. I've wanted to be a full-time producer for forever and I LOVE PBS (watch for me on many annoying pledge breaks to come). It's going to be a change to move from suits to jeans. but it'll be great to be out there shooting and editing every day. The gang over there are fabulous and I'm just so excited!!! Stay tuned for video clips of my productions and great production gossip stories!!

Giving Thanks in Dallas - a random post

I've come to the conclusion that I'm not as creative or witty, or committed as I'd like to be in these blogs. I think the lack of commitment may contribute to the lack of creativity and wittiness but the jury's still out. It's a little depressing as well to constantly see "no comments" on every posting...like why bother writing when no one's reading? I have NO idea how many people actual read this thing so speak up and encourage me to keep on truckin if you like-a what you read-a (pathetic attempt at wittiness). We are off to Dallas tomorrow for a little vacation. we have no agenda besides catching the Stars and Maple Leafs hockey game (what a "Canadian" thing to do given the fact the virtually the whole rest of the country wil be watching football). Euge and Josh will take in the Grapevine Skatepark with half-pipe ramps big enough to earn Euge's approval. I plan to veg..alot...work's been as hectic as it always has been, and the house, pets and kids never seem to get any easier. I will forever remember these years as the "tired" years - happy, but tired. A few days away from it all will do us all some good- my friend Jessie offered up her place and she's coming up to Wichita for the weekend - truly a noble gesture to turn your house over to a family with 2 little kids - eek!! (I plan on keeping the kids in the car upon arrival and putting away all the breakeables right away). So...no schedules..no cooking...no housecleaning ...no pets (we got the pet sitter)....and no work. Sure, the whole extended-family, home-cooked thanksgiving-thing has a lot of bonding moments we'll miss...but we'll have to make do with a stress-free buffet brunch, hockey game, and sight-seeing. haha.

Coincidences, Connections, Craziness

You know the 'Six Degrees of Seperation" rule - well, in Wichita, Kansas it's "one degree of seperation". This means that no matter who you meet here, you'll both have at least one friend/aquaintance in common. This has ceased to amaze me after living here a while (I used to proclaim "you're kidding I know them TOO!! so much I started annoying myself) - it's a small City and subcultures are tightly connected - but a coincidence this past weekend blew my mind. We were at Benton Airport for Eugene's dept. picnic (super fun - Josh got his first plane ride in a Stearman Bi-Plane) and a cool-looking couple show up. The guy had a friend who was a pilot at Benton who told him that there was an event going on that days (ours) and he might be able to score some free place rides. The plane rides were over but once the Stearman Pilot (Sam Gaymar the ex-astronaut who'se been up in space 3 times and comes straight out of the movie "the right stuff") learns that the visitor-guy is originally from Poland, he takes him over - on the tractor of course - to the neighboring house, where there are four Polish student pilots living there. Sam takes the guy (I can't remember his name - let's call him "Sal") into the house and to go meet the students. One of the students looks at "Sal" strange and says "wow, I used to know a "Sal" back in Poland, he was my next door neighbor. "I know" said "Sal", "I'm him." Can you believe that? Two next door neighbors from Poland meeting up in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. The world is a small place and if you're open to opportunities and willing to take a chance, you can make connections everywhere you go!

GREEN TIP OF THE DAY: In honor of "Blog Action Day" I'm referring you to some environmental blogs that are popular on Blogspot - take your pick and read one - there's a blog listed for every taste and interest:

http://greenfuture.blogspot.com/ - Thoughts on the coming of a society that is in balance with nature.

http://consciousearth.blogspot.com/ - Earth-centered news for the health of air, water, habitat and the fight against global warming.

http://greenskeptic.blogspot.com/ - Devoted to challenging assumptions about how we live on the earth and protect our environment.

http://thelazyenvironmentalist.blogspot.com/ - Sustainable living made easy.

Wanted: Friends

I was just sifting through some facebook pics and blogs of people I know and made an unsettling discovery - I am devoid of a "friend clan". See, being a transplant, having 2 kids, working full-time and volunteering extra tiome with media-related undertakings (Visioneering, film fest, etc) is great for my career life, but has done nothing for my social life. In Oregon, Eugene and I had an awesome pseudo-family of friends - they were all transplants too, all had little kids, and were all liberal "screw the system" hipsters. We all had little kids, celebrated holidays and birthdays together and just had a blast hanging out. God, I didn't realize how much I missed that until now. I'm a super-social person - but I don't think I've set aside the time and energy neccessary to invest in any meaningful relationships with people here (the one I did have moved away - damn you Jil!!) - especially other couples with small children, and I admit, it's kind of lonely. So, I'm being proactive and putting out a call for entries - if you are fun-loving, fairly liberal (sorry, bush-lovers not allowed), have or like small humanoids, and enjoy get togethers at various places around town - we're in!!

Stuff

I took these pics over the weekend - Genevieve and her stuff. She can't go anywhere without carrying some sort of makeshift purse and a plethora of crap. I worry these tendencies will turn her into a "bag lady" when she gets older - or at the very least a pack-rat.

My editorial advisor (Euge), is insisting I write about yesterday's windshield-wiper fiasco. Our windshield wiper had fallen off last week and in true Lardizabal-Jenkins style, we didn't bother (or know how) to replace it until it started pouring rain yesterday on our way home from the mall. So of course I can't see anything and we turn into the nearest cull-de-sac to avoid crashing into whatever we can't see. Anyone who lives here will groan when I mention that the neighborhood we are driving through is Eastborough. This is a neighborhood that has such a superiority complex that it became its own city....in Wichita. It has its own police, piddly "City" hall, and a speed zone of 20 MPH just so that the police (who have nothing else to do) can nail anyone who goes even 5 miles over that (my theory is they use the money to throw a "we're so great" party every year complete with radar guns as party favors). So anyway..we drive under a tree to avoid getting totally soaked and Eugene hobbles out (his ankle is still bandaged up and he has one of those cast-boot things on) to try and put the windshield wiper on. After about 3 minutes of sturggling and getting wet, the house we're parked next to opens its garage dorr and there's a family standing there. The wife proceeds to yell at Eugene that we're parked on their lawn (like one tire was on their grass) and to get off their property. Imagine this scene for a couple of minutes - a guy in a cast in the pouring rain with his family in the car, trying to put a windshield wiper blade on and all they can do is stand in their garage and yell at us? This is a great opportunity to warn those of you out there about the power of Karma. If you see such an opportunity to help someone in need and do not take it - well, you know the saying "Karma's a Bitch?" - enough said.

school schedule mayham

Sometimes I think it would be easier to give up fighting the system, quit my job, and spend the day shuttling my kids back and forth to various committments b/c it sure seems like the schools do not want both parents working. I found out yesterday when I picked up my son at 5:15pm, that he doesn't have school for the rest of the week. They're doing the "DIAL" mandatory testing on each kid for half an hour each and apparantly they can't handle conducting regular classes at the same time. Now I admit, I got the letter home saying they're doing this testing and that Josh wouldn't have "regular classes", but I didn't interpret that as "no school at all for three days straight". I've been spoiled with preschool, where, if your kid doesn't have class, he goes to Adventure Club: the after-hours care. I have Josh in "latchkey" (God I hate that term being a lowly latchkey child myself during my elementary and middle school years) and they posted their notice YESTERDAY AFTERNOON that there would be no latchkey Wed, Thurs or Fri. Now, Euge and I are transplants here, which means no family or close ties with moms that have nothing better to do than watch our kid for 3 days straight. I couldn't skip work for the rest of the week and neither could Euge. I thought fast and raced to preschool daycare where I begged the admin head (literally crouched and had hands in praying motion with a pitiful look) to take Josh in the preschool class. The Gods must have been smiling on me because it turns out a kid was sent home throwing up that day and that meant there would be a space for Josh today (the Gods were obviously not smiling down on him - wonder what he did?). Thurs and Fri looked good too. Now I have to find a way to take him to his scheduled testing time tomorrow morning, when I have 4 meetings scheduled back to back at the same time (I already called Euge and he has an appt with an orthopedic surgeon he's waited 3 months to get). I think I'll leave it in the hands of the Gods again (you can tell I'm a huge Battlestar Galactica fan), I'm too tired to stress about it.

Hockey time in Kansas

My little guy starts "Hockey Skills" Class tomorrow - I can't believe how excited I am - you'd think he just got drafted by the NHL or something. I think it's inbred in Canadians to put their kids in Hockey - I say "kids", not boys, because last time I went home to PEI it seemed there were just as many girls playing hockey as boys - awesome stuff. Euge and I were a little apprehensive about Josh's skill level and how he'll do tommorow, but after taking him skating for his last practice on Saturday, we feel better. I think we've officially graduated to the next level of parenting: the "teach your child a skill and and follow-through" type of parenting - which we've never done before. We're the reigning kings of half-baked parenting - one swim session here, one bike-ride there, 3 weeks of rock climbing, then 4 weeks of basketball - it's like we're actually passing on our ADD to our poor kid, who will never really learn how to do anything well. It was different with skating though- there's a lot monre at stake. There's the money involved (actually the grandparents bought the skates and equipment - amazing grandparents ), then there's the time involved to learn how to simply skate, and then there's the whole cultural thing. We faithfully took Josh to the rink twice a week for an hour each time - and each time we saw him get better and better. We added his equipment on piece-by-piece to get him comfortable skating in it and by the time last Saturday came along, he was zooming around the ice with full-equipment. I know this is so mom-ish but he was SOOO CUTE. I can't wait until tomorrow to see him in action. As a reward for all the hard work he (and us!) put in, we bought NHL tickets to see the Dallas Stars take on the Maple Leafs over thanksgiving weekend in Dallas. The seats are in the front section and I'm telling ya - as a Canadian, it'll be worth every penny!!