My kid can beat up your honor student.

Maribeth at the Smart Bohemian wrote a hilarious post:

French women know that less is more, so they always remove one fashion accessory before they leave the house.

For example, if a French woman were driving a Honda Odyssey sporting a cartoon family decal and several Elementary School Student of the Month bumper stickers, she would see no need for a vanity license plate reading "SCCRMOM."

I am more likely to sport a bumper sticker that says, "My kid can beat up your honor student." You see the proof.

The dialogue is not terribly clear. He told her to kick THROUGH the board. She tells him she is not sure if she can remember how to do it as it has been a long time since they last practiced with a board. He tells her to just try. Then she pulverizes the board into three pieces with her jumping scissors kick.

She breaks boards with her roundhouse kick, too. The combination of such sweetness and lethality is irresistable.

Anton said it was her birthday. It was her birthday party day, but not her actual 6th birthday. Because all but one of the attendees of the party needed to attend the belt test, we took a break and went over to the park.

Family Day at the Getty Villa

Today was one of those absolutely gorgeous fall days in which Malibu looks like the Mediterranean. Look at that blue sky with nary a cloud or drop of fog! How very unusual, except under Santa Ana wind conditions. How very unusual to have Santa Ana winds in Malibu without a wildfire! There was a sinkhole that had closed down a portion of Pacific Coast Highway, but that is the price of paradise.

We scored 5 tickets and one parking pass for the Family Festival at the Getty Villa. We met up with another family on Pacific Coast Highway with the aid of cell phones and headed up to the villa's new parking garage.

Iris and B listened to Tunisian and Italian folk music and storytelling. Iris and I made two mosaics each. We also spent some time looking at Tunisian mosaics. Later, while strolling in the inner courtyard, I noticed the motifs on the Tunisian drums.

There is a sense of urgency about seeing the permanent collections at the Getty. You never know when they will be claimed by and repatriated to other nations. The mosaics were lent by Tunisia and the commentary tried to be sensitive to that issue. Taking the mosaics out of the elements preserves them, but also take them out of the context that they were meant to be seen and enjoyed.

For instance, fish spill out of a tipped basket. They should look like they have spillt across a floor. Instead, they look like they are swimming up a wall.

That reminds me of a comment by an art critic about when quilts made the big leap from the bed to the wall. I didn't understand that comment until today. I am young enough to have taken it for granted that some quilts belonged in museums and that they would, of course, hang vertically. (The hugely influential Whitney exhibit of Amish quilts in 1971 proved that.) I hadn't realized what a difference a change in perspective from horizontal to vertical can make.

We had a lovely afternoon. The evening was just as beautiful. This is the view leaving the villa just before sunset. Note the green sod roof on the new parking structure.

The sunset from the corner of PCH and Sunset Boulevard. Note the child's balloon that flew into the picture frame. A jet forms a contrail just to the right. You know that the air aloft is cold (because a contrail is visible) and dry (from how quickly the contrail dissipates).

Time to bring in the specialists

Part of growing older and wiser is knowing when to call in the professionals. I came home yesterday at 2:39 after the usual round of medical appointments and errands that make up my "day off".

There was a trickle of water moving across the garage floor. It was coming from the drip pan of the hot water heater. I called Mark right away and left voicemail telling him about the water and that he needed to call the plumber right away. I proceeded to bring in the shopping and hang up the laundry that was still in the washer when I left that morning.

Mark called back to say he was coming right home to investigate. Turn off the water main on the side of the house and wait for him. I did not think this was a problem that he could fix. I had discovered cracked water heaters before and the inevitable response from landlords were that they were coming over to investigate. I did a little investigation of my own and decided my first instinct was right.

It was then 3 pm on a Friday afternoon. Something had to be done quickly if I wanted to have hot water this weekend.

I walked 2 blocks to the plumbing supply store. The owner was out but J, a senior plumber was there. I told him about the puddle, the slow trickle coming out the bottom of the water heater, and that the top of the tank and top fittings were all dry. I told him it was most likely a cracked water heater because it was at least a decade old. He said that it could be the water heater or the fittings.

J looked across the store at a junior plumber, C, and asked if he was done for the day. C said it was ok, grabbed several different kinds of fittings, and walked out the back door. (C and J had both been to our house on other plumbing matters in the past year.) J wrote out a work order and told me to walk home. C would probably be waiting for me there. I beat C back to my house by a minute. Mark had already arrived home and was inspecting the water heater. C took off the water heater jacket and, voila, we saw the crack in the side of the water heater.

C called his partner to go pick us up a 50 gallon hot water heater. He asked us for a garden house and proceeded to flush and drain the old water heater. We went inside . C's partner delivered the new tank. The two of them lifted out the old tank and put the new one in. C's partner hauled our old heater away while C finished fitting it and cleaned up that corner of our garage floor. Luckily, the mops and brooms are stored in that corner.

By 6pm, we had a new heater, hot water and C had a nice big check.