Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Rebecca blames me that her weeks to write the weekly letter never have anything interesting or photos, but I do. This week is no exception. 

Today we are instituting a cat sabbath. Paela has been very affectionate to the cat all week. She has learned to climb up onto the couch by herself so she can get to the cat and jump on her. And Paela has learned that the cat makes a nice pillow, until the cat fights back. Which she has, several times this week. We're trying to teach both Star and Paela to have boundaries, but in the meantime, we have decided that a cat sabbath is well needed.

Climbing on the couch is the least of our worries. She also climbs onto the center table by herself. And onto the heaters in an attempt to get into the window. She tried to climb into a chair, but there wasn't enough room for her to get a leg up but I can't imagine that will deter her for long. Paela was officially accepted into Medi-cal (free state insurance) this week (while we were rejected), so she's prepared for the worst.

Ducks attack! We went to our favorite park this week and after Paela had played for a few hours on the slides/swings/stairs, we took her over to the ducks in the pond. And they swarmed around her, expectant, I assume, that children her age are notorious for not watching their food closely. Paela because very concerned that we were completely surrounded by 20+ ducks and pigeons, until we showed her how to chase the ducks. That was enjoyable. Yet, even with our best efforts at preparing her, a very audacious duck snatched a cracker right out of Paela's hand as she was backing away from it. We very carefully backed out of there when the geese began to take an interest. Wish I had brought a camera.

Again, we managed to get a free day of gym time for Paela, this time at a different gym. While there is no way we would pay the outrageous fees these thieves are asking for their services, Paela warmed up faster this time and enjoyed using the balance beam -- with Rebecca's help, of course. The Santa Clara library's sing-a-long time was a different story. Rebecca claims there were over 100 people, which meant that Paela clammed up and watched everyone instead of running about. Luckily her cousin Thomas was there too.

I'm not sure where in this update to put it, but Rebecca and I find it terribly funny when Paela stares at lights: she squints her eyes and scrunches her nose. 

I had meetings all day Tuesday and now officially have a thesis committee, although my project is at a stand still until I can figure a better way to present the material in a visually compelling way. While I agree with my advisor that I need to improve my skills presenting conceptual material in a visual experience, I think I hold different ideas of how content is read by the layman. Speaking of visual presentations, setting up my show on Friday was a disaster. I was supposed to be able to check in and begin installation at 1pm. The people cleaning the gallery up from their show last week didn't finish until 4pm -- which is amazingly unprofessional -- but then I found that the paint they had put on the walls was bleeding through the white coat they had covered it up with. The gallery manager had to strip the wall and repaint the entire thing with multiple layers of primer. I got a call late Friday night saying that my gallery would be available for installation on Saturday. Things didn't go terribly smoothly after that, but at least things are up and working now.

Lastly, we finished taxes. The government is kind to those of us who lost money in the stock crash. If you sold it.