Orbit Gum & Disaster Adverted

Husband Mel's recent allergy testing showed him allergic to Aspartame, so I went to the market and bought an assortment of gum for him to try. My daughter, Edith-Sarah, and I decided to try one of the packs with an orange flavor, leaving the gum in the car so we can take it to Mel's office later. Then she and I ran errands taking our family dog, Mayim, who loves to come along for the ride when it is not too hot outside.

We came back to find an empty pack of gum on the back seat. Mayim had eaten 12 of the 14 pieces and most of the packing. Just enough of the cardboard was left for us to read the name "Orbit" and my daughter remembered the "hazardous to dogs" warning I told her about from our dog list.

We came home and I called our vet's answering service, who has us call an emergency vet located about 20 minutes away. Instead of driving to Emergency, they had us call ASPCA Dog Poison Control Center. The people at the call center are great and gave me advice about how to dose Mayim by giving her three pieces of bread and then getting her to drink 3 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide, putting cream cheese at the bottom of a small bowl to entice her to drink the liquid.

We were not sure how old the hydrogen peroxide was, so Mel went to the store to buy another bottle. Nothing happens with the first dose. We did a second dose with the brand new bottle -- more walking and waiting. After 45 minutes, we finally saw some serious vomiting. It was my joy to closely examine the puddles and count the paper gum wrappers.

Now to the punch line. I've got a special number to call the Poison Control Center to update them about Mayim's situation. I'm talking to a vet. She says to me, "It looks like this was your first time calling in." Yes. She asks "Portuguese Water Dog?" Yes. "Your dog is seven?" Yes. She says "We've been waiting for you to call."

What?!

The vet laughs. She says "there aren't many Portuguese Water Dogs compared to the number of other dogs we help, but they certainly make up a large part of our business. They are quite ambitious about what they will find to eat... and not too particular... You're probably the only PWD owner who hadn't called us yet." She laughs again.

I was instructed to watch Mayim to make sure she didn't start acting "drunk" and if she did, I was to immediately give her something very sweet to eat, like syrup, and get her to the emergency vet. Mayim had an uneventful evening and has seemed her normal self since, so crisis adverted because of my very observant teenage daughter. I'd forgotten all about the Orbit warning. Thank goodness Mayim had the good sense to not eat the entire wrapper. I would have never remembered that I left gum in the car -- let alone the brand. I wouldn't have had any idea why she was sick...

Yes, the same daughter helped save Mayim, last night saved the life of a 42-year old friend who fell into a diabetic coma. Now that was quite an eventful number of hours! Edith-Sarah was amazing -- getting help, directing paramedics, providing information about the friend, and completely holding it together until we got home and she began to shake uncontrollably. I'd say it's been an amazing 24 hours for a 14 year old. She saved a human life and probably Mayim's. Wow! Thank you Edith!

From one very grateful mom to her wonderful her daughter Edith and an infamous will-eat-anything PWD who looks very cute when she is being very bad, Thank You!

RV Park with Orange Trees!

We find ourselves back in Orange in Southern California these days. Like the perfect storm, three events changed the course of our trip.

I fractured my ankle when my exuberant dog greeted me and pushed me down the stairs of the RV while we were in the mid-west; son Dave has had two procedures at the local Children's Hospital for his Ulcerative Colitis and before we try another surgery, we are changing his medications with a wait-and-see approach; and our business has weakened since we build religious facilities which rely on the financial markets and parishioners ability to be able to give.

Three weeks ago Mel drove back to Minnesota to rescue the RV while Dave and I recuperated from our medical woes on the couches of my parents and Sarah (now known as Edith or Eddie) was at Not Back to School Camp in Oregon.

So here I am, parked in Orangeland, an RV park in Orange County with a real fruit-producing orange tree at each site, 5 minutes from Disneyland, 10 minutes from my old home and considering my future and my checkbook.

Lots of wonderful things have happened while we've been here! I used the opportunity to completely empty my long term storage, host a giant garage sale, sold things on E-bay and Craig's List, donated to our special charities and now, except for 15 boxes of extremely cherished possessions, I am completely free!

One of the hardest things about being away in Ashland, Oregon last year during the High Holidays was missing our friends at our synagogue Congregation B'nai Israel. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to spend Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with people we care about. The preholiday meals at my dear friend Demi's house were the best ever! We enjoyed a friend's sukkah the other night and got to shake the lulov and smell the sweet etrog. I don't think I'll be dancing with the Torah next week due to my walking cast, but it will be fun to be with our community.

Dave is studying for mid-terms for his two college classes and applying for jobs at the local McDonald's and the movie theater across the street to celebrate turning 16 last Monday. He went to a homeschooler dance a few weeks ago and met Olivia, a lovely teen, also 16 and also 6', and the two of them spent two days at Disneyland before she returned to her home in Las Vegas. He took the PSAT on the spur of the moment Wednesday and is overjoyed to be back near his favorite sushi restaurant which is all-you-can-eat on Tuesday nights. He and his grandfather have been enjoying their time together and have traveled to visit Dave's great-grandfather in Rialto and learned the basics of how to fly remote control airplanes.

Eddie is enjoying reconnecting with friends, but is finding that she has matured so much this last year, that it makes sense to add some new friends to the mix too. To that end, she announced that since we aren't traveling, she wants to be "really, really" busy with school work and social activities.

Eddie is now enrolled at the local homeschool highschool "Pacific Coast High School" where she'll attend a couple days a week for drama and work online for english, algebra and a self-directed pe class exploring different types of exercise and fitness choices. She's signed up for a Health course at Coastline Community College. It's not a class for the faint-of-heart, the textbook is filled with revolting, graphic images to alcohol and tobacco damaged organs and sexually transmitted diseases. Yikes! I'm glad I'm not growing up in this era.

I'm going to begin designing websites starting later this month. I know I'm going to love the work, I could spend hours on computers, programming and fussing with graphics and text. I'm going to associate with a firm specializing in web sites for small businesses -- the owner is someone I respect immensely. I'm also considering taking on some business consulting, but since I'm not sure how long I'm here, I'm not sure that makes sense. Right now I'm focused on supporting Mel in our family business.

While Mel's niche of developing new campuses for religious facilities and schools, is suffering through the financial crisis, he is repositioning our firm to go back to our previous specialties. As we develop the marketing materials to highlight our "not religious organization" experience, there is a familiar feel, like being with an old friend.

We are actively pursuing work with the Ports which was where he began with his work with EPA at the Port of Seattle and which brought him to Southern California to begin with. Returning to his scientific roots managing technical teams for government agencies and developers through environmental compliance and regulatory process sounds like a good place to be right now. I'm sure this type of work will not be as emotion producing as when he was honored a few weeks ago for his project Cottonwood Christian Center at the grand opening for their new 4,700 seat, 300,000 s.f. worship center, which received nation-wide news coverage as the City of Cypress tried to condemn their land to build a Costco instead. It was a wonderful night and it made me so incredibly proud of the work Mel has done for his church clients!

Right now we imagine that we will be back on the "Grand Adventure" in March. We have completed from Wisconsin west and have the east coast to finish hopefully beginning this Spring. The only exceptions are that we are saving Washington and Alaska for our final 3 month trip and bad weather scared us away from Louisiana. The wild weather in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas this spring was more than enough excitement for us!

We had planned to winter in Texas at 128-acre preserve at Thousand Trails Lake Conroe near Houston, but I guess it's a good we didn't get there as planned since I fractured my ankle, because they experienced terrible damage from Hurricane Ike and still don't have power and sewer. So maybe Mayim did us a favor by bumping me down the stairs!

I am planning to speak at the FMCA conference in Georgia about life on the road with teens, letting go of possessions and roadschooling. But if we have to take a year off till everything gets "right" again, being back with friends and family is just fine with me too.

California -- Here We Come!

Dear friends and family,

I haven't been blogging lately... We have been living each day fully -- balancing the adventure and responsibilities; stopping to smell the flowers and see the stars while we keep to a schedule; and falling into bed at night, reviewing the special things that happened that day, looking forward to tomorrow and sleeping peacefully.

But I have been taking tons of pictures that I'd like to share with you... Be sure to take a look at the pictures with us and our frogs at the Mark Twain Festival Frog Jumping Contest in Hannibal,Missouri or the video of carving the Crazy Horse Memorial near Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota or cherry picking and the fish boil in Door County, Wisconsin.

http://picasaweb.google.com/malkoffgrandadventure

We're leaving Minnesota on Monday to come back to California for the Home School Conference in Sacramento, CA next week and then to Orange County till 9/24. Email me at maryann@malkoff.com or call me on my cell phone (714) 328-8541 -- it would be great fun to get together!

6/12/08 Dazzled by Electrical Storms and Museums in Kansas City

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A break from rain and listening to our favorite detective Spenser solve crimes made the drive from Omaha, Nebraska to Oak Grove, Missouri go quickly. KOA campgrounds aren’t our first choice (they are too sterile and surprisingly expensive), but it was a relief to spend three days in cookie-cutter comfort compared to our last campground with no services, mosquitoes and flooded campsites.

I was feeling better, but it was Sarah’s turn to be feeling punk. Fortunately, there was a book trade library with a Janet Evanovich book that made her laugh, a bottle of “sexy” orange juice (she’s been captivated by the marketing campaign for Tropicana juices – she’d love to become a commercial photographer) and soft ultra Kleenexes. Unfortunately, she felt awful longer than that one book, so she started into the Twilight series, one of Dave’s favorites. Topic of book? Vampires, of course!

Dave started his Coastline Community College course online! Taking this 4-unit College Algebra course is quite a milestone for him – We’re so proud! It was sweet to read his bio posted for his teacher and classmates “a mushroom amongst the daisies” describing his life on the road in the RV. Wouldn’t be my personal choice of images for him, but it certainly got him lots of comments from his fellow “daisies” adult students, mostly female teachers, from all over California. As is typical while living in close quarters of the RV, Dave became sick, needed his own Kleenex box and suffered stoically. The CPAP breathing machine he uses nightly for his sleep apnea helped greatly, so he spent a lot of time sleeping.

We packed our pockets with tissues and headed out to enjoy Independence, Missouri, the home of President Harry S. Truman and a terrific German restaurant. I talked the kids into trying Spatzle, a type of egg pasta that Mel and I love. I looked longingly at the German beer choices and decided on ice tea instead. It’s sad when you don’t feel well enough to drink!

The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum was delightful. It was markedly different than the Clinton Library we saw in May, which took your breath away with its design, lighting and presentation – you got the feeling that it was the very best money could buy. In contrast, the Truman Library felt like coming home. It was beautiful in its simplicity and quiet elegance; it had recently been remodeled.

Harry S. Truman was president under remarkable circumstances. He had been the vice president for 82 days when President Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945. During his presidency he oversaw the ending of the war with Germany and approved the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan. History has been rewritten since that time and the museum had a terrific exhibit exploring both sides of the issue. Many historians now believe that Japan was ready to surrender, that the bombing was not necessary, and others believe that the 80,000 people who died was a small number compared to the numbers that would have died had the conflict continued another year. Dave has been troubled by the bombing since he toured the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque. He was glad to read both sides of the issue, especially the warnings that the US gave Japan before the bombings. The next room featured the Marshall Plan, the $12 billion European recovery program, put in place after the war to alleviate poverty and starvation – creating an interest juxtaposition of America’s actions.



President Truman also signed the papers founding the United Nations and NATO (creating a military barrier to protect Europe against Soviet expansion), defended South Korea from communist invasion in the Korean War (a fascinating exhibit about General Patton and President Truman) and recognized Israel as a new country. He desegregated the armed forces and forbade racial discrimination in Federal employment. We got to see the love letters between the President and Mrs. Bess Truman, the famous newspaper “Dewey Defeats Truman” and the desk plaque “The Buck Stops Here.” After his presidency he returned to Independence for twenty years as “Mr. Citizen.” The excellent films about the President left one feeling that his was a remarkable life and that we were lucky to have him as a president during those difficult years.

Our Kleenex supply was running low, so we breezed through the traveling Lincoln exhibit about the Civil War. There will be plenty of Civil War studies during our East Coast trip of 2009. On the way back to the RV, we dropped Dave off at a Barnes & Noble, conveniently with a nearby BBQ restaurant.

Sarah and I got back to the RV and I began following the tragic news about the tornado that tore through Little Sioux, Iowa (where we had been scheduled until bad weather rerouted us) killing the four boy scouts. Fox began putting up weather maps saying that the Midwest was due for even more storms and tornadoes, especially Kansas City (25 miles away) which was expecting a significant storm with tornado warnings in an hour. Yikes! I jumped in the car, got Dave on his cell phone, told him to hurry and purchase a book, and picked him up just as the storm began to hit.

We got back to the RV just as the skies opened up around 8:00 pm and were dazzled by the most amazing electrical storm we’d ever seen; it lasted through midnight. We kept all the blinds open and the lights off to experience the dazzling brightness. It rained fiercely all night and the tornadoes touched down 20 miles from us, but we were safe and dry. We took a day off to rest, study, read and write.

On our last day, we set off early because we had so much we wanted to do. All three of our destinations were close to one another and we didn’t think they’d individually take much time. We were surprised at how much fun we had at each.

Hallmark Slide Show


We took a self-guided tour of the Hallmark Visitors Center whose slogan “When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best” applies to their excellent exhibits, especially the company’s time line and products intertwined with world events giving you a unique feeling of the mood of America seen through greeting cards. Sarah especially enjoyed the films about the creative process and various techniques used by the Hallmark artists. I was fascinated by the different Presidential Christmas cards. There were presses using dies to make three-dimensional designs and embossing, and a machine that makes bows from spooled ribbon.

By far the highlight of the day for Sarah was watching clips from Hallmark commercials shown around the world. To her delight, the commercials touched me deeply, and my eyes would well up and I would cry at the sentiment expressed. We’d watch a commercial with her watching to see if I would start crying -- she thinks I have a future at Hallmark testing commercials. “You’re not crying, are you?” has become her favorite way to tease me.



After lunch we headed over to the Steamboat Arabia. Sarah wasn’t feeling that well, so Dave and I left her in the café while we took the tour. The Steamboat Arabia was 171 feet long with 28-foot tall paddlewheels and was carrying 200 tons of cargo bound for frontier merchants when she sunk in 1856. All of the passengers got off safely, but the cargo was lost. Over the years, the Missouri River changed course and eventually the Steamboat was discovered 45’ below the surface of a Kansas cornfield in 1988 by four local treasure hunters who have discovered ten other ships.

The treasure hunters were astounded by their find, and since the ship was still in water due to a low water table, the items were remarkably well preserved. Of course, all of the paper and cotton clothing had long since melted away, but the rest of the goods were able to be restored. It was a fascinating look at what was needed by families settling the frontier from tools, nails and hinges to build houses, dishware and pots and pans, shoes and boots, (all shoes were “uni-shoes,” neither right or left in those days), sewing supplies and buttons, preserves for pies, and ladies toiletries, including perfumes. They had sent the perfumes to a lab to determine what it was originally made from, and had recreated the scents. One smelled like baby powder and the other was a lovely floral scent that I gladly wore the rest of the day. We enjoyed their behind-the-scenes look at the on-going restoration of the remaining items that they have preserved frozen in giant ice cubes. The museum estimates that it will take 20 more years to restore all of the items.

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Slide Show


Next we headed to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. In part because Sarah loves art museums, and in part because Mel’s sister Susan worked there for a number of years and we knew it had to be a very special collection to woo her away from the Getty. Dave always pretends to be dragged along to art museums, but he enjoys himself and the yummy treats that art museums always have in their restaurants. We hadn’t been there for 30 minutes, when Sarah said “maybe we should stay an extra day so we could see everything!”

The Museum buildings themselves were magnificent. The new addition called the Bloch Building glows with natural light and intriguing spaces that make you want to wander. In 2007 it was named one of the ten best recent architectural marvels by Time Magazine. Too bad we didn’t get to see it at night – people say it is magical.

We enjoyed the terrific collections of European paintings by Caravaggio, El Greco, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Degas, Monet and van Gogh; Asian art – Japanese, Chinese; Korean and Indian; and we were confounded in the Modern Art section. Sarah has a wicked sense of humor – as we toured the exhibit, she kept up a quiet, whispered-in-my-ear dialog on the bewildering choices of art in the gallery that made me laugh out loud. You should hear her rift on the “cantaloupe on the newspaper,” the all-black canvases and the grey rectangles -- we were lucky we didn’t get kicked out!

We skipped the American paintings since we’d seen so many excellent examples in Oklahoma and ran out of time before we got to the Photography exhibit, which had been donated by Hallmark Card’s Hall family. Instead, we enjoyed the outdoor sculpture park with my favorites – the badminton shuttlecocks that I’d previously seen in picture books. What a treat to see them in person! The gift shop was magnificent, we were lucky to escape without a cow shaped radio, a cow backpack, and cow magnets – are you picking up on the theme? Sarah loves cows. Her new myspace name is “eddielovescows.” She is currently going by Mel’s mother’s name Edith, Ed or Eddie, having grown weary of her boring and common name “Sarah.”

6/8/08 Butterflies and the Ocean in Omaha

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Arriving in Omaha we called my good friend Steve Murow’s brother Allan. We had hoped to meet up, but our schedule and his didn’t match up. Allan had plenty of good suggestions for things to do in town, so we decided to take it easy and enjoy Omaha for a few days. We were anxious to stay put for the upcoming storms.

Our new campground had been inundated by the storms and their gravel roads were badly damaged. It was easy to choose a site -- most were in standing water, so we tried to choose one that wouldn’t be good for growing rice.

The first night we went downtown and enjoyed a “Taste of Omaha.” It was a lovely warm summer evening in the Heartland of America Park on the Missouri River with food booths featuring local restaurants, a live band doing a tribute to U2 and fireworks.

The next day Sarah, Mayim and I sat outside enjoying some rare sunshine, played with a frog found next to RV, and read each other the book "The Perfect Present" a going-away gift from our South Dakota friends Celia and Jack. It wasn't till later that we realized that we had been a lovely snack for the mosquitoes and Sarah and I were covered in bites.

Later the girls went on a quest for internet access, ran errands, discovered a Tollhouse Cookie store, and bought groceries while Dave hung out at the local Borders book store. We got back just as a major storm was starting that continued for the next 36 hours so we enjoyed our full pantry and movie selections as we watched the rain poor down.


Omaha Slideshow


Our final day in Omaha we enjoyed the magnificent Henry Doorly Zoo, considered to be one of the best in America. Sarah and I got sidetracked in the walk-through Kingdom of the Seas Aquarium and spent several hours enjoying the penguins and puffins, giant Pacific octopus, moon jellyfish lit with black lights, floor-to-ceiling cylinder tank with schooling fish, and coral displays. We were in awe in the Shark Tunnel area – an oval-shaped, 70 foot long, acrylic tunnel through a 500,000 gallon salt-water tank with sharks, sea turtles, rays and other marine life swimming by on two sides and overhead.

We then went to the brand new Butterfly and Insect Pavilion. The exquisite butterflies and moths fly freely in a conservatory filled with large trees, plants rocks, waterfalls and ponds to mimic natural habitat. When you leave the exhibit, you enter a mirrored room to check that no butterflies are trying to hitch a ride out. Fascinated by the chrysalis room, we tried to match the cocoons in the hatching chambers up with the beauties we’d just seen. After admiring the bee hive and insects like centipedes and walking sticks, Sarah squealed with joy at seeing the different spider habitats including her favorite -- tarantulas. (She continues to lobby for a pet tarantula making her case that they would be the perfect pet for an RV. Eek!)

Knowing that our time was growing short, we hopped a tram to see the rest of the zoo. Luckily for us, our tram driver was an adorable teenage boy who used every opportunity to flirt with Sarah and was rewarding by her teasing him back. He stopped the tram for us to get pictures of the baby sea lion that had been born that morning. The mother sea lion guarded her darling little one zealously almost wounding another sea lion in the enclosure who swam up to see the new arrival. You’d be amazed how quickly she can move!

Sarah tried to wrangle another ride around the zoo, but I dragged her off to met up with Dave for a “Wild Ocean – Where Africa meets the Sea” IMAX in 3D. At the end of the day, we ran into Dave at the primate exhibit. He had seen the entire zoo on foot and was more than willing to leave the for a steak dinner at a Texas Roadhouse.