Last Days of Summer

During the last few days of summer, the Kang-Weyants squeaked in a few more fun outings before having to face the realities of school, work, and baby.

We finally went to see a show at The Bob Baker Marionette Theater, the oldest children's theater in LA and a historical-cultural monument. The rabbit called me and Kate the "strawberry twins" and then pounced on us. Kate found it both funny and slightly terrifying. The old-fashioned music and radio spots (remember "The Incredible, Edible Egg?"), the punny jokes, and the one or two offensive puppets in desperate need of retirement....

....made me and Chris feel like we were in a time capsule. Racist puppets notwithstanding, we all enjoyed the show immensely.

Topping off our journey back in time were the vanilla ice cream cups that the puppeteers handed out to everyone. Kate was thrilled to be eating with "an old-fashioned wooden spoon," and she appreciated the Nancy-Reagan-era message of "Say No To Drugs" on the sides of the cups. "Like Michael Jackson should have!" We continued our tour of downtown with a stop at Clifton's Cafeteria, LA's "oldest surviving cafteria-style eatery." Kate was fascinated by the block of green jello with bits of pear trapped inside.

It looked a lot more interesting than it tasted.

We all agreed it wasn't the soup-kitcheny food that made the visit worthwhile...

...but the decor and atmosphere.

Where else in the city can you dine by a family of bears fishing?

A few shots of the horrible fires during that week that kept us indoors:

View from the side-view mirror as we were leaving our house.

On another day, we escaped the toxic air quality by heading to the Science Center near Mom's alma mater, USC. After watching the Imax movie, "Under the Sea," narrated by Jim Carrey ("Mom, when is he going to stop talking??") and learning all about how cuttlefish mate, we headed inside the main building.

Aside from watching Adam Arkin help his kid tackle the climbing wall, the most interesting things we saw were this giant spiraly tube through which Kate could send secret messages to Appa ("Appa is very smelly")...

...a ride simulator in which Kate and Appa (pregnant ladies not allowed) took a trip under the sea to see schools of dolphins; and the playarea upstairs where Kate lead a group of kids in a game of working together to collect and distribute foam shingles inside a 2-story clubhouse. Karl Marx would've been proud.

When a few uncooperative boys grabbed the shingles out of Kate's hand, she shrugged and said, "Those boys don't know how to play nicely." They're lucky she didn't sentence them to a gulag.

It was an incredibly fun and productive summer. Kate learned how to swim, began learning how to read and spell, started doing simple addition and subtraction ("Michael Jackson is dead, so there are four brothers left and now they're The Jackson Four!"), further increased her rapidly-growing vocabulary ("Elephant is very discouraging of Piggie"), and even grew a whopping three inches!