...so the day after my friend Charon's Halloween party (exactly this time last week; I'm a little late catching up, I know) we had two other parties -- one, a neighborhood party from 10 to noon. Actually it was a parade around the Dominion Hills neighborhood, with a party and food at the neighborhood park afterward. I brought gingerbread and it was gone. I mean, GONE, within an hour. The guy who organized the event sounded very disappointed that he lost out on tasting a piece. Found out that the park is actually owned by the neighborhood association; the county helps maintain it but the neighbors keep it clean, mulch the ground, make sure the grass is cut, etc. They even leave toys near the play structure for the kids to play with! Anyway, I had a nice time chatting with some of the folks there, including one Jewish family who advised me what synagogue around here that would work for interfaith couples.
After the event we drove to a place that was having a gigantic sale on carpet remnants and bought one for the half-finished basement area, which we now refer to as "the family room." It's beige, with a wonderful pile, and we hung a bunch of really cool posters so it's a great space to watch TV and listen to music, rather than the pile of boxes and CD crates we worked around during "family movie night" on Saturdays (whereupon we make a special exception to the "no eating away from the dining room" rule, order pizza and maybe Drew brings home cupcakes, and we watch a Barbie movie, put Rachel to bed and then watch a grownup movie. This is how Drew and I catch up on movies that everyone else in the universe has seen, oh, three years ago). Lately Ivy has been joining us, so Drew re-named our routine "Family Fun Night," and we all have a great time together.
We dropped by a consignment store to get Rachel some winter clothes (alas, consignment stores here aren't nearly as good as the ones in Portland), and she started complaining that her stomach hurt, her head hurt, her whole body hurt, and when we got back all she wanted to do was cuddle with me on the couch and listen to a Laura Ingalls Wilder CD. She insisted she felt well enough to go to the Halloween party Ivy's parents were having, but as soon as we got there I could tell it was a mistake. Rachel tried to play upstairs, but then came into the living room, put her head on my lap and started bellyaching so loudly that I finally scooped her up and we went back home. She crashed for two hours in her bed ("will you please check on me?" she asked forlornly, and of course we said YES), and then woke up, ready for family movie night. We watched a Barbie movie together, and then Drew and I watched "Django Unchained."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment