tollipop

summary

You know that feeling...

when you ask your child to tell you about the book she's been reading,

and the answer turns out to be 

longer than the story itself?

my brother is on the radio!

Dear reader, do you have a moment?  My brother is on the radio right now!  You can listen to him sound all smart and medical (it's actually pretty interesting).

I'm just dying to call in with some crank symptoms...but I won't.

Just click on this link for the live internet feed:  

kdwn.com/streamer/

This is a picture of him in the kitchen.  I mean, he's a great doctor and everything, but you should really try his cooking.  

The radio show will end today at 11:00 a.m. PDT, but it will be a bimonthly program and I will definitely mention it again in the future.  

*******

Update:  The show is now over.  Thank you so much for your kind comments and helping to spread the news.

Did you get a chance to listen?  I listened to the entire thing with this ridiculous grin on my face.  I'm sorry if this is too much family rhapsody, but I thought he was fantastic!  

tim tollestrup, md

This is my brother, Tim.  I've mentioned him on my blog before.  I've told you how we used to run with the wolves as kids.  How we used to do everything together, mainly because I shadowed him like a hawk.  Then he grew up and became a doctor.  And I grew up, too.  Sort of.  And we both got married and had a bunch of kids and stuff like that. And then Tim missed me so much he moved to Las Vegas just to be near me again.  

Yeah, that sounds about right.  Especially the part where he missed me a lot.

At any rate, my brother is a peripheral nerve surgeon who also specializes in hand surgery.  Neuropathy refers to nerve pain, and in particular it affects people with diabetes, advanced stages of arthritis, and various other debilitating injuries.  

He wrote an informative article on the subject right here (scroll down to page 27).

At any rate, a recent exciting development in my brother's practice is that he has been asked to host a bimonthly radio show!  How cool is that?!  It is the type of program which welcomes callers with questions regarding health related symptoms especially pertaining to neuropathy.  

HIs first show airs this Friday, July 29, at 10:00 am, PDT.  The radio station is Talk Radio AM 720 Las Vegas, or you can listen to it online at  kdwn.com/streamer/.

There are many people in the world who know my brother is a great doctor, but there is no one except me who saw it coming from the time we were kids.  No one could have looked up to a big brother more than I did, and as a result I observed him very closely.  And I am telling you, he has always been incredibly gifted with his hands, incredibly precise, incredibly interested in medical issues, and incredibly perceptive in his ability to see an issue in a multi dimensional manner and determine a way to solve it.  

In short, he is incredible.  And I haven't even told you the half of it.

Please help me spread the news about Tim's radio show via word of mouth, Facebook, Twitter, etc., (you merely have to click the corresponding link at the bottom of this post).  I would appreciate it so much.  I feel completely confident in recommending him as a doctor and know this information will be gratefully received by people who suffer from chronic nerve pain.  

yes, i went back

Dear reader, if it seems all I talk about these days is crepes and cousins...well, there's a jolly good reason for that.

For the past little while, anytime I've tried to sit down, there's been a cousin hiding in the cushions.  Anytime I've tried to eat something, a cousin comes out of nowhere and perches by my side.  There is giggling beneath the beds, scurryings, passwords, claims of starvation, requests for flashlights and rubbing alcohol, and all kinds of scratching noises which stop immediately when you come to investigate.  

I think they may be digging a tunnel or something.  

At any rate, I finally tried the raspberries and nutella.  It was amazing.  It took me back to my childhood and the complicated yet passionate relationship I enjoy with raspberries.

But it also filled me with anxiety to get back to my original crush, Bananas Foster. 

It's called the Crepe Shack, dear reader.  And no, I'm not getting any free crepes for rhapsodizing about them like a schoolgirl in love.  But if you happen to visit, please tell them Tollipop sent you.  It never hurts to curry favor.

I think my brother curries favor there on daily basis.

the best toy i ever gave my girls: paper

I'm not the world's biggest toy enthusiast.  I mean, there are certain toys which appeal to my fancy, but most of them tend to disappoint.  

I've never especially cared for my children to become attached to toys.  It's somehow disheartening to think a mass marketed, media driven, popular figurine could capture my daughter's imagination, franchement.

I would rather them be outside gazing at a pinecone, imagining it to be a tree in a miniature forest.  I would rather them be reading.  I would rather them be writing.  I would rather them be running.  I would rather them be dancing.  

 

I would rather them be making things.

Over the years, I've smiled a bit wanly at some of the toys they've received as gifts.  I hope that doesn't smack of elitism or ingratitude...it's just my heart has instinctively yearned for a certain natural, nostalgic ideal when it comes to playtime for my children.

 
Happily enough, I see them leaning toward the balance of my vision on their own accord (and possibly due to an occasional lack of flashier options, which I freely endorse).

Often, it seems a sheet of paper is all they need to amuse themselves for an entire afternoon. 

Oh, paper.  I have such a crush on you.  I love that you are the canvas upon which our imagination and dreams unfold.   

attention las vegas: stop whatever you're doing and head for the crepe shack

Yes, it's that good.

The Crepe Shack is located on Eastern within the same shopping plaza as Trader Joe's.  I'll be making the pilgrimmage on a regular basis.  

Bananas Foster, I love you body and soul.  Izzy got strawberries sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar.  My sister chose raspberries with Nutella.

I'm afraid if I branch out I won't be able to keep track of all my suitors.

In other news, there was a cousin attack over the weekend. Lots of laughter, a few tears.  No serious injuries reported.  

Just cousins, cousins, cousins, as far as the eye could see.

If I had a magic wand, I'd conjure them up more often.  

And take them all to the Crepe Shack. 

:::::::::::::

p.s.  If you're from Las Vegas, please consider Facebook liking this post!  I have a vested interest in keeping myself in crepes.

this moment

 

It's hard for me to be like Amanda and simply publish a picture without words, allowing you to come away with your own impressions.  

One of these days I'm going to get it.

This was Caroline's first orchestra experience.  Ever.  And watching my littlest one rise to this very challenging occasion made my heart both ache and sing.  

And sing.

vive la france

Dear reader, the summer has been amazingly temperate this year.  Still very warm, but not especially sweltering.  

Yet this afternoon I find myself feeling drowsy, having started the day early, having taken girls to appointments and pet shops and sitting with them to practice musical instruments.  

And now, lulled by the cicadas.

It seems too great an effort to tell you much of anything.  

It's the heat, isn't it?  Just because it hasn't incinerated me in one fell swoop doesn't mean it isn't clobbering my brain slowly with a dull, listless mallet.

Please let me chalk it up to something.

*********

p.s.  Happy Bastille Day!  Thanks to the cicadas, I'm imagining myself in Provence at the moment...

making me happy

Cupcakes and the friend who brought them over.  

Pastries and the little old man who brought them over. 

 

The worm does not especially make me happy.  But something about knowing my girls rescued it during a rainstorm, made this habitat, and placed it where I could watch it squirm as I wash the dishes makes me happy.  

Sort of.

 

Playing Caroline's homemade memory game and deciding which cupcake to eat first.

We chose maple.

Tadpoles, and the girls who adore them as much as I do.  

What's making you happy today?

my new favorite road trip

 
I love road trips, dear reader.  

If I think back to my childhood, the memory of sitting in a car with my head against the window comes back with a sense of the incredible beauty that captured me along the way.  I can think of everything I saw--every mountain, every forest, every river.  I can think of frozen waterfalls in the winter, of evergreens like sentinels, covered in snow.  I can think of tall grass, of changing leaves, of warmth, crispness, and cold.

I can think of early mornings and late nights, of pale light and bright light and slanted light and darkness.  I can think of winding, climbing roads and the endless, straight miles.  

I can think of reading a book and feeling sick to my stomach, of closing my book until I felt better again, then opening it and reading some more.

I can think of fighting with my brother, of his elbow touching my side and my foot touching his side, that invisible line of property children demarcate in a car.  I can think of being warned to stop.  I can think of not stopping.  I can think of being deposited somewhere in the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter, me and him, watching the car drive off with nothing but our frosty breath and the realization we had just dropped to the bottom of the food chain between us.

What better way to rekindle the alliance? 

I can think of road trips with sisters, heading off to far away schools.  I can think of road trips with little brothers, laughing like maniacs, playing music on our crappy sound system, talking about everything under the sun.  

Last week I went on a road trip with Sophie.  

I had her all to myself, which is like setting my heart in a comfy chair, building a fire in the fireplace, and giving it a cup of hot chocolate.  

She's thirteen, but you would never know it.  Well, sometimes you would know it, but those are good times, too.  She has a vocabulary like the Great Wall of China, making her one of the seven wonders of the world when it comes to conversation.  She actually coined the term hamster invective, to give you an idea of the scope and grandeur of our exchange.  

We stopped for treats along the way.

So yummy, sweet and cold.

Please indulge an overabundance of photos in its honor.



For a couple of days I watched Sophie play volleyball.  I brought a book in case I got bored and never opened it once.  Everything was interesting.  Everything was engrossing.  I even got to shag a few balls...(hoping that translates properly across the pond).  

And at the end of the camp, the final few hours of gameplay were so exciting I could hardly breathe.  

 
At night we went to dinner and Sophie was too tired to change out of her volleyball clothes.  But she was not too tired to ask for a pen and draw all over her place setting.

 
Yet another reason I love this girl.

I'm just going to say this: the University of Utah has an incredible volleyball program.  The camp was essentially run by the team itself, and they were amazing.

The correlation does not necessarily follow between being a brilliant player and a brilliant coach, dear reader, yet each one of those girls coached as if they were the chosen one of volleyball coaching.  

If I could have hugged them all when it was time to go home, I would have.  And I probably would have tried to convey how much it meant to watch them nurture and challenge and help my daughter, and then it would have gotten all weird and sloppy.  

And out of the corner of my eye I would have seen Sophie crawl into a corner and shrivel from embarrassment.

So I didn't do it.  I only pictured the whole thing.  

But I am telling you, the University of Utah has an incredible volleyball program.  

And then it was time to go home.  

It was late, but Sophie kept wondering if the shaved ice hut would be open when we passed by.  I told her it wouldn't.  She thought it was worth a try.  I said there was no way it would be open.  But she still wanted to try.  

And then I realized: this is a road trip, franchement.  And I wanted Sophie to remember it.

So well past the hour things typically shut down in a small town, we pulled off the highway and stopped.  

And she was right!!

The shaved ice hut was not only open, but we stood in line forty minutes waiting to get some.  

And she kept looking at me like: is this okay?  Are we allowed to do this?  

And I was all: trust me, Sophie, I'm finally the adult in this situation.  And I say we're doing it.  

And I know she's never going to forget it.