Tom's climbing party. (photo Iris)

The greatest hit was scrambling up to the overhang and letting go. (photo Iris)

Tom's birthday fell this year somewhat inconveniently on Monday. Furthermore it was the Monday after returning from our wood-chucking trip, and I had my hands full with unpacking; we had to convince Tom that it would be better to postpone celebrations till the following weekend. For Friday we selected and invited several of his school mates to a climbing gym, with climbing for his Czech friends being left for sometimes later. It's simpler to organize fewer kids and not to have to pay for an official belayer.

Naturally, when you carefully plan things to have time and room for a smooth run, something somewhere must fail. I was to help out at Lisa's classroom on that Friday. I knew it ahead of time; I counted on coping with the one and half hour there, then I would bake diamonds for Tom (his favorite cake replacement), I skip out to school for mid-day yard-duty, I'd pick up kids at two-forty (mine plus one school-mate, whose mom would be still working by that time), and we'd go climbing. But Lisa's teacher came to ask me to copy assignments for all the classes to be ready by Monday (I had signed up to volunteer copy duty at the beginning of the school year, but I did not anticipate it to land on me like this in the last moment). So I spent two extra hours copying and sorting about a hundred of folders. I rushed home from school; I had ten minutes to cook and devour lunch, finish a cold tea from the morning — and I was rushing back to school for my yard duty. Thereafter I finished the rest of the assignment copies and sped back home. I managed to bake the diamonds in an hour (I did not burn them too much), dig out harnesses, shoes, spare clothing for kids and self, write a note for Rumiko whether she and Bryce would like drive with me, rearrange the car for seven seats — and go pick up the kids.

Tom's got eight candles on his cake.

The main present was electronic blocks.

When I was leaving the school, Rumiko called that they would ride with me after all, so I made a short turn back — but we made it to the gym in time, before other guests started arriving. Eventually eight children came, and besides me, Hippo and Rumiko helped belaying, so everybody got a chance to try it. The greatest hit, however, was scrambling up to under an overhang and subsequent letting go, which ended in swinging on the belaying rope. Old hands who climb regularly were having fun, but you could see first timers' horror in their eyes. Still, even they bravely demanded another round.

We really hate the staple of kids' parties: cold, greasy pizza and goodie-bags for guests. We had eliminated the pizza by subsequently going to eat out at a decent restaurant. I solved goodie-bags the same way I did last year — by buying books. Instead of filling a bag with junk for a few cents that kids break or forget within thirty minutes (frequently both), I'd rather shell out a few dollars for a book. These are the real deal, with several chapters and mildly complicated plot. Lisa surprised me though, for she immediately asked which Magic Tree House was for her, and said that she, too, wanted such a book. I had a feeling that she was getting slightly ahead of herself — but I issued her one of the books to make her stop feeling left out — and she read all of it by the end of Saturday. She's been apparently reading by about two orders of magnitude better than her mother had expected.

We had a dinner in a reduced company (six kids and five adults) at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant Phuong Thao, and in the evening both kids, according to expectation, fell in their beds like dead. I would have gladly fallen likewise, but I still had to finish the glazing on the diamonds and pack our presents for Tom so that we could have a proper family celebration on Saturday morning.

We walked a bit in Felton before the concert.

School bell.

As a main present, Tom got electronic blocks. He likes to attend Hippo's mending computers, and he's fascinated by all possible blocks and construction sets — we already own so much Lego that we could possibly open a small toy store. We wanted something more challenging and interesting. We hope we succeeded; Tom now ponders simple circuits and seems happy. Another present was a book titled Bad Kitty — fun stories about a cat. Tom looked at it and said "yeah, I had borrowed that one in school from Alex" and briskly finished some five missing pages. I suggested that we could swap the book for another one from the same series, but he does not want that and keeps reading it over. Then he got some more little things; we don't overdo it with gifts. We try to offer the kids a functional alternative — they can choose where to go for lunch, or do something fun in an interesting place.

Tom, however, thwarted all our expectations; he said he wanted the "orange soup" for lunch. I was looking forward to festive sushi or some other specialty, and my son had chosen as his most desirable lunch a tomato soup from a box! Well, perhaps he appreciates it more than restaurant food. After lunch he, naturally, wanted to visit the model train club again, which we had expected and were ready to deliver.

Thus went Tom's wishes — and came his parents' turn. For several month we have noted in our calendar that on the last weekend in October, Druhá Tráva, a Czech bluegrass band, would have a concert in California. We had missed their earlier concerts several times; usually learning about it from our friends after the fact, as they went (and did not tell us) or they did not consider it worth their attention (as the name means "Second Grass", they though it was some hippie weed stuff). This year we have to thank Radka, who has been going to their concerts and dutifully reminded us as well.

To our great joy we discovered that besides classic evening shows they would play on one afternoon in a Mexican bar in Felton. It meant that we could take our kids along and did not have to worry about baby-sitting. Radka reported that tickets could be reserved, but it's kind of a black hole (there was no confirmation). Hippo tried to call Don Quixote directly, but only reached a machine that berated him about tickets sold at the entrance and reservations being recorded on a tape, but nevertheless tickets are sold on a first come, first serve basis.

Lisa at a concert.

Druhá Tráva. (photo Suchýš)

We came up with a plan to go to the redwood park in Felton in the morning, stop at eleven thirty at Don Quixote's for the tickets, divert to Scotts Valley to a lunch in our favorite Thai restaurant, being by one at the concert. Well, first we left home later than we wanted; in Felton we just checked out the train and by half past eleven stood in front of the bar, where Luboš Novotný (dobro) sleepily squinted into the sun, and Radka with Magda and some more people already sat at the bar. No one was selling ticket, so we skipped the Mexican food and headed to have our preferred fare in Scotts Valley.

We were a bit nervous during the lunch, whether we'd be able to park in time for the concert, and whether there'd be still tickets available, and so on. Well, we parked right in front of the entrance to Don Quixote's, got tickets with no problem; in our estimate, there were perhaps ten people already in the audience by then. We selected a table in a rear (third) row to allow the kids to come and go and be able to get out without bothering others. I chatted a bit with Magda and Radka, when Suchýš appeared in the door — I think that in the end our family and friends represented approximately one third of the audience in a small hall for about forty people. I really did not expect a concert this private. And we left more money in beer and lemonades than for the tickets.

It surprised me that most songs were performed in English. After my experience with Jarek Nohavica show, who sang and spoke all Czech for a Czech audience, I did not count on a Czech band performing for Americans — but it was apparently me who was wrong. Majority of the audience did NOT speak Czech. There's no point in describing the concert — great music is great music, and Hippo and I had much fun. Tom and Lisa lasted about forty five minutes, then periodically cycled out of the bar to play on a deck under a large redwood, coming back to hang on us. They received M&M's from the bar personnel at some point, and that kept them busy for a while. They generally behaved, did not cause any disturbance, and all went well.

A fairy.

Harry Potter and a clown.

One could talk with the musicians during a break and after the concert; we even bought a personally signed CD — and we did not need to push in the crowd or stand in a line. I think that in the end the family atmosphere of a small club was a lot more enjoyable than a fully sold out concert hall — everything happened at ease and without stress, such a half-private show in a country bar, in a small town in the middle of Santa Cruz Mountains. We were leaving satisfied and resolved to not miss the next opportunity; we hope that we can find more such petite happenings. You can find a few pictures at Suchýš's page, where we also borrowed the illustration for this journal.

October holidays culminate in Halloween. Our conservative Tom said that he would be Harry Potter like last year, relieving my worries. We already own the costume, it's very simple (he dons a cape and I decorate his face with a signature scar and add black-rimmed round glasses), and underneath you can wear clothes according to current weather. Lisa eventually chose a black-purple dress with wings and bats at Costco. I have no idea what it's supposed to represent, but I don't care. Lisa is convinced it's a Halloween Fairy. Well, why not.

They had a Halloween parade after lunch at school, and then some games in the classroom. Parents were amassed in such a density that I was glad to be gone home to have a drink. By two forty I picked up our Potter and the fairy, we quickly finished some of the homework, decorated our house, I forced some dinner in them — as it got dark outside and it was time to get out trick-or-treating in our block. Tom was looking forward to meeting with friends, but he had arranged nothing concrete. Still, in our neighborhood you can simply get out of the house and you are guaranteed to meet someone. It was a warm night this year, and I noticed that trick-or-treaters were out in force. Most of our route we banded up with neighbor's kids, but we were running into other school mates as well. Some we just passed by, some we joined for a while, as it became convenient. And since our kids are fast and industrious, I really don't know what we would do with the heap of goodies that they received. Parents are likely to get fatter again.