Pikachu pinata

I wish I were able to report more upbeat news, but things aren't really going as well as I would like. It seem as though the guy who hit me was hugely underinsured, even though his driving record is atrocious. Then Courtney let me know that she, Dave and the boys won't be coming out for Christmas.

I can totally understand why Dave and Courtney don't want to drag a 6 month old and a 20 month old cross-country during the holidays and it's totally understandable, but Christmas is a huge, hairy deal for me and has become even more so now that I'm a grandmother, so it completely sucks. I was really looking forward to seeing the boys. They grow so fast and there's no way I'm going anywhere by air for awhile. The pit of self-pity just gets deeper.

So today, to take our minds off of things, Rob and I dedicated ourselves to finding a Pikachu pinata for Kaia's birthday party, which is this weekend and has a Pokeman these. Rob had to do the footwork, going from place to place looking for a Pikachu pinatas, we live near a Mexican neighborhood, so there are lots of pinatas around.

Rob and I have become the pinata suppliers for Kaia's birthday parties because a few years ago she and I were talking home from a little park a street over and we passed by a house where they were having a birthday party. Kaia really wanted to go up and mingle, but I had to explain that these were strangers and we couldn't go to the party. She said, "We'll go up and tell them our names and then they won't be strangers." But she wanted to watch for a bit and having nowhere pressing to be, I said OK. They had a big, old pinata and they were hitting it and she was completely transfixed.

Finally one of the older kids was able to crack it and candy spilled everywhere. It was all I could do to contain Kaia, whose instinct was to run and grab as much as she could. Fortunately someone at the party had noticed Kaia and picked up a big old handful of candy and brought it over to Kaia. I'm always so thankful for the nice people of the world, they are so few and far between. Anyway when Kaia's birthday party rolled around that year she made it clear she wanted a pinata so Rob and I bought her the biggest one we could find -- a pinata girl about 3 and a half feet tall -- and she just loved it. Last year we got a Care Bear-ish one and this year the assignment was a Pikachu one.

We quickly determined that there were no Pikachu pinata to be had, so looking online, we got the idea to remake a bear pinata into a Pikachu. Rob looked high and low and finally determined where the best pinata shop was. But they didn't have bears. They did, however, have a penguin that had the right proportions, generally, as Pikachu. So Rob got crepe paper and some poster board and I set about remaking the pinata.

This was the perfect project to take my mind off of things -- I got a call from my lawyer's legal aide wanting more information, but I just wasn't into it or anything else but the Pikachu. I just love the feeling of successfully completing one of these little crafty projects, I always feel so psyched, especially when they come out well, and this did, although I'm having trouble with the idea of kids tearing it up. Creativity is such a joy.

Tomorrow Kaia is coming over and we're making Ghosts in the Graveyard, my very very favorite Halloween dessert. More later.