Family
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a very merry unbirthday
My older nephew, wishing to space his birthday out from Christmas somewhat, requested a half-birthday, so the family got together today for a kind of combined Father’s Day/unbirthday party.
Between the hours of 8am & 2pm, I baked a rather complicated cake, made its complicated frosting, made vanilla ice cream, cleaned the kitchen 2 times, did 4 loads of laundry, emptied all the rubbishes, cleaned the kitty litter, made lemonade, and just barely managed not to die of the outrageous 80 degree heat.
Ted went out to do errands, and the first thing he said upon returning was, “In my defense, *you* sent me to the bookstore….”
(The take was 2 cookbooks for said elder nephew, who wants to learn to cook, as well as Naomi Novik’s TEMERAIRE, a book for Indy, and the next three books of the Expanse series.)
Post-erranding, Ted made a ridiculously delicious dinner of grilled veg, salmon, shrimp, & kielbasa, which we all sat down to eat with hearty appetites. We also spent a lot of time lounging in the back garden, where, among other things, I spent a few minutes leg pressing my sister, which is no doubt perfectly normal behaviour.
The unbirthday boy cleaned up nicely, with a whole bunch of *extremely* nice tea (he’s apparently really in to tea, who knew?) and cookbooks along with an offer of cooking LESSONS from my husband the professional chef, and a super cool katana-style letter opener and some other good stuff, and seemed very pleased with his unbirthday.
The cake and ice cream turned out very nicely–the ice cream was so rich and smooth it was practically obscene, which isn’t always the case with my ice cream; I don’t make it enough to be really good at it consistently–and the lemonade was appropriately appreciated.
I managed to walk 4000 steps without actually leaving the house, which seems a little ridiculous. I am absolutely shattered, and to top it all off, I’m coming down with a cold. But it was a splendid day and we’re all happy. Tired. But happy. :)
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chopped liver, or: a story of parenting
A couple of weeks ago Indy and I went out to a restaurant here in town and Indy asked them if we could have a window seat. But they brought us to what he considered the wrong one, and he said, “No, that one please,” and pointed to the front window, which had obviously just been vacated and not cleared yet. I was saying words to the effect of “oh my god indy don’t make their lives difficult” when the host suddenly said, “Oh, now I know you! You usually come in with your father!” to Indy, and swept off to clear the table and seat us at it.
I was appalled and spluttering and Indy said, “No, it’s *okay*, Mommy! They know me here! They think I’m charming and delightful, just like the people at the hot chocolate shop do!” Which was clearly true, although I told him we don’t generallyask people to go to more trouble than is necessary for us.
So last night Dad came to babysit and Ted and I got to go OUT TO DINNER on our OWN for an anniversary dinner. We went to this same restaurant, we were seated, the waiter came over…
…and said, “Where is your son?!”
It was 9:05pm and I said, “We hope he’s at home asleep!”
The waiter left and Ted, amused, said, “What are we, chopped liver? We pay for the meal!”
We had dinner, which was delicious, and went to pay.
The host said to us, “How was your dinner? Where is the little one?!”
We started laughing, and the host started telling us what a well-spoken and intelligent child our son was, and how he came across as much older and more experienced than his years, and went on being complimentary until we’d left. *throws hands in air* :)
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we have amazing friends.
this morning i came home from dropping indy off at school and ted, looking very emotional, said, “come into the kitchen and see what our friends have done.”
a little befuddled, i went into the kitchen, and there saw a large box and thought, “oh! yes, one of them said they would send a few–” and somewhere around that point a started to realize that there were two large–*large*–boxes, crammed full, and…
this is…i just…i don’t even know where to start. they organized a care package of Food We Can’t Get Here, in the wake of Mom’s death. a dozen people helped put it together. people across the whole the united states, from alaska to boston and everywhere in between.
i have literally never seen so much bakers’ chocolate at once in my life. not even at a store. (the lady who bought it cleared the place out of it. <3) you can't get crisco here at all, nevermind in giant tubs. this will last us forever. i used to eat that kind of cereal when we were in alaska, and missed it terribly when we moved here. people sent me some for a while, but then i got used to other stuff, but someone (i suspect mary anne) *remembered*. i will be bringing one (or 1.5) of the ENORMOUS BOXES of mac&cheese to my sister Deirdre, whose boys love Kraft mac&cheese with... well, all the love of 11 and 13 year old kids. :) and i'd just used the last of the chocolate chips we had, and now we have bags and bags of POSH ones. and one of my oldest friends sent me a hug, in the form of this beautiful, beautiful scarf that she made:
i’ve been wearing it all day. ted and i have been pretty much crying all day. every time we go into the kitchen it just starts again. we are so overwhelmed. so grateful. so thankful. so amused because OH MY GOD IT’S JUST SO MUCH!
i had pop tarts for breakfast, of course. <3
we don’t really know how to say thank you. we’re just stunned and grateful and feel so, so loved. ♥ ♥ ♥
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history lesson, via #Hamilton
Me: *sings* My name is Alexander Hamilton!
Indy: Who’s that?
Me: He’s one of the people who fought the Revolutionary War and helped start the United States of America. He built the banks.
Indy: *wide eyes* Revolutionary War?
Me: Yes. You know how in 1916 in Ireland there was a revolution? The United States had one of those in 1776, a very long time ago.
Indy: Did Ireland have any more revolutions?
Me: Yes, in 1921. That’s when they obtained their independence from Britain, which is the same country that the US was revolting against.
Indy: Did the US have any more revolutions?
Me: Sort of. In 1860 there was another big war where the South of the US and the North of the US fought each other, but the people who started it didn’t win so it’s called a civil war instead of a revolution.
Indy: Why did they fight?
Me: They were mostly fighting over something called slavery, which is where one person is allowed to own another person and make them do whatever they want. Do you think that’s a good idea or a bad idea?
Indy, looking very thoughtful, lifted his hands in balances, one hand rising high while the other fell very low. I said, “Is that good or bad?”
“*Bad*,” Indy said emphatically. “Who won?”
“The North,” I said, “the side that thought people shouldn’t be allowed to own other people.”
“YES!” Indy shouted, and punched the air.
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PokemonGo
Indy and I went on a Pokewalk this evening. Won the local gym back (at great cost, half our Pokemon fainted!). We’re *terrible* at Pokebattles but Indy seems to be learning to embrace the “we’re doing it for fun not for winning” thing, which is great.
and OH OH OH DO YOU KNOW WHY #POKEMON’s MAGIKARP IS SO HARD TO EVOLVE THERE’S AN AWESOME REASON!
turns out there’s a Japanese legend abt a fish determined to climb a massive waterfall. keeps trying, keeps trying, keeps trying. all the other fish mock it, you can’t make it, you’ll never make it, stop making a fool of yourself. but it keeps trying, keeps trying. & FINALLY it succeeds
and the gods look down on this fish & say “good damn job,” & TURN IT INTO A DRAGON AS A REWARD FOR ITS PERSEVERANCE
Hence Magikarp –> 400 candies –> GYRADOS THE DRAGON
HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!?!?!?
