Andy Smallman

So last night I wrote about Chloe’s pumpkin weekend at college. I thought I’d use another photo tonight she sent me from that pumpkin carving event. With her in this picture is her roommate Andrea. I wrote about the roomies back on September 3rd. It sounds like they continue to get along splendidly. In fact, Andrea will be heading to Seattle to stay with us for an American Thanksgiving in a few weeks.

In other news, Melinda spent a chunk of the weekend working on putting in a ceiling in our laundry room. This is a very hard thing to do because of all the plumbing pipes and heat ducts. But she’s committed to it and soldiers on. She’s also committed to continuing the juice cleanse, this being her 7th day. I returned to using my teeth yesterday.

Tomorrow I have jury duty and am due at the courthouse at 8am. This will cause me to miss school for at least the start of the day and perhaps longer. If I get on a jury, it could be several days. I’ll know more tomorrow.

Every year, Melinda’s sister Brenda and her husband Greg (Perrin’s parents) have invited Chloe and Ella over to their house to celebrate what has become a family Halloween tradition, Pumpkin Weekend! It involves heading over on Saturday afternoon, picking up pumpkins, carving them, having dinner, watching scary movies and spending the night. This has gone on for years and when the girls were young served as a night out for Melinda and me. Of course, last year was interrupted by our year in France. But Ella is excited to be back at it, with Pumpkin Weekend scheduled for next weekend.

Not to be outdone, apparently, Chloe participated in something she called Pumpkin Weekend up at Quest University. I’m not sure how she can call it that, but that’s what she has done. She just sent me several photos from the event, including this one. I can see the France influence is live and strong.

Speaking of Chloe, she continues to report being happy at school. She’s involved in her second “block,” a 3 1/2 week long class, this one on rhetoric. It’s supposed to bring the freshmen to their knees. I guess that happened to Chloe yesterday, but that may have been more due to the food poisoning she reported knocked her down last night and today.

I can safely report that there has been nary a case of food poisoning from Pumpkin Weekend in Seattle.

Ella is taking two dance classes this fall. On Thursday evenings it’s a beginning ballet class. And on Friday evenings, a ballroom/swing class. She is very happy about both and has asked me to take a picture of her and write about it here on the blog. I had hoped to get a shot of her tonight before class was over, an action shot, but it took an extra long time to get to the studio to pick her up. Melinda was guessing that may have to do with The Black Keys performing tonight at the grand opening of the Microsoft Store at University Village.

Anyway, dance seems to be a better fit for Ella than was soccer, what she had done for several years in the fall before our year in France. Her heart was never really into it, especially when compared to dance. I just don’t think Ella is the competitive type.

It seems I may have told this story before but it bears repeating. Back when she was something like 3, we signed up Ella for a Creative Dance class in the neighborhood. In her first class Melinda and I kind of spied through a small window in the door. Ella seemed to be having a great time. When class was over she came out and we asked, “So how was it??” She replied with some scorn, “I don’t know how they can call it creative dance when they tell you what to do!”

It was both funny and stunning, coming from Ella.

A year ago today I wrote about the crêpes that Ella’s homeroom teacher made for her to bring home to the rest of us. It was such a profound act of kindness that I let it supplant what I first intended to write about that day, the fact that Melinda made homemade coq au vin (I did tell about that two days later). Today’s photo is from exactly a year ago. As you can see, it’s of Melinda in our kitchen in Nantes making said coq au vin.

I’ve got food on my mind – crêpes, coq au vin, anything(!) – because Melinda talked me in to joining her for a 10 day juice cleanse. The other day I wrote about the fact we bought a juicer. Now I guess we have to use it. And use it. And use it. Man, are we ever going through a lot of produce. And man, am I ever hungry.

Truth be told, I’m ending this juice cleanse after Day 5, which is tomorrow. But Melinda has asked that I keep to a strict vegie diet for her remaining 5 days. Which, of course, means no coq au vin (just writing that makes my mouth water).

Say, can coq au vin go through the juicer??

First, let me just point out that the blog got 144 hits yesterday, about double the recent average. Just what makes this happen, I wonder. Given I don’t post until the evening, most of the visits are coming for the previous day’s post which, in this case, had to do with my weight loss. Do you think it was some kind of Google search having to do with losing weight? Like I said, I wonder.

Clearly, a photo like today’s (or yesterday’s) is much more interesting than one of me having to do with losing weight. I mean just look at young, three year-old Ella here, another from my collection of our trip to France in the year 2000. I think the only thing that prevents this from being a full-blown “French” photo is the blue socks. It’s breakfast time in our Paris hotel. Ella’s got a croissant and hot chocolate. She looks great.

But blue socks?

Not too long ago I had several thousand old family photos digitized. It’s been fun looking through them, including finding a number of photos from our trip to France in the year 2000. That summer, Melinda’s grandfather treated his entire family to two weeks in France to celebrate his 90th birthday. We spent a week in Paris and a week in a villa in southern France. I mentioned all of this not too long ago, back on September 2nd this year.

This is one of my favorite photos from that incredible trip. Yes, that’s Ella, age 3. She’s on a carousel under the Eiffel Tower. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Speaking of Ella, it’s hard to believe that she’ll be 15 in December. Soon after that comes her driver’s permit and then soon after that her driver’s license.

I don’t recall her needing a license to ride this horse on the carousel.

Since returning to Seattle, several people have commented about the fact that I lost some weight while in France. Truth be told, “getting in shape” was one of the goals I set for myself for the sabbatical.

I started off pretty well in August with yoga, walking and, to a certain extent, biking. I even started tracking my weight, using an online tool called WeightChart.com. I began doing this on August 16, 2010, weighing in at 167.2 lbs.

But you may have heard about things like, um, well, delicious cheese and French pastries? I’m here to tell you these things are true. By September 13, what with the delicious food and all, I was over 170 lbs and basically stayed above 170 until January. Go see what my face looked like on September 10.

In January I got sick, as I mentioned on January 9. Once I felt better, I renewed my commitment to getting in shape but this time I took up running. I also cut down drastically on the French pastries and started practicing portion control at meals. The pounds started to drop, as if by magic. I felt great.

I’ve continued all of this since our return to Seattle, including my regular updates at WeightChart.com (every Monday!), complete with a photo (today’s!). I weighed in this morning at 150 lbs, a weight that seems to suit me just fine.

That cute little girl in the front there is our niece, Perrin (if you are Ella or Chloe, Perrin would be your cousin). Perrin turns 5 on Tuesday so her parents, Brenda & Greg, threw a little family birthday party for her tonight. Also in this photo are Dwight & Michele, Melinda’s and Brenda’s parents. Greg set up the timer on his camera to snag this shot just before we all left, about an hour ago.

You veteran sabbatical blog readers will be familiar with this entire cast of characters, given they all visited us in France last December for Christmas. Perrin was prominently featured on the blog, including on December 16th when she, Chloe & Ella posed outside of the Galeries Lafayette in Paris.

Returning to today, at Perrin’s request Greg made scampi for dinner (how many 5 year-olds request scampi?). It was incredibly delicious. Earlier in the day, Melinda & Ella were over at Perrin’s to assist with her “kid party.” Brenda put together quite a bash for that one — hidden treasures, face painting and Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Me, I’ll take scampi.

The other night Melinda and I watched a documentary made by a man who regained his health through juicing. Years and years ago, we bought a juicer, wanting to make our own concoctions. But the amount of juice generated was small and the amount of mess generated was large, leading us to ultimately get rid of that juicing machine. Watching the documentary re-inspired us.

This morning we were doing a little online research about 21st century home juicers and learned about those made by Breville, considered by many to be the best out there. They provide juicers in a wide price range but all are still at least $100. Making a quick detour to CraigsList, I found a local yard sale listed in which the entry level Breville juicer was being offered for only $25! Melinda and I snatched it up.

By mid-afternoon we had become mesmerized by the ease of juicing with this machine. Two pears, an apple, a carrot and half a lime yielded each of us a huge glass of absolutely delicious juice. Tonight, as a nightcap, I made another batch, this one consisting of celery, carrot, snow peas, apple, grapes and ginger.

We’re hooked!

Melinda and I just got back from seeing Nick Lowe tonight at the Triple Door in Seattle. Wow, what a show. I mean it. He was absolutely great. That’s a picture I took of Nick on stage tonight. We knew every song he played, including a a cover of Elvis Costello’s “Alison,” “I Knew the Bride” and “When I Write The Book.” He introduced the latter song by saying Seattle was the first city to embrace his old band Rockpile. That took me back to 1980, my senior year in high school, when a group of us saw Nick and Rockpile at the Paramount.

Remember the Nick Lowe salute, Marc Burns??

Speaking of stories involving Nick Lowe, the first time Melinda and I went out together was to see Nick Lowe. This was 21 years ago last month and is a very funny story because Melinda made a huge point that day to tell me in no uncertain terms that her going to see Nick Lowe with me was not a date. Of course less than 4 months later we were married. I referenced this in my first ever post on the Kind Living blog.

I also referenced Nick Lowe about a month ago here when I wrote about listening to his new record. We’ve been listening to the disk regularly since, leading Melinda to lean over at one point tonight and ask me if such and such was a new or an older song. That one there, Melinda, “I Read a Lot,” it’s brand new.