Tradition....tradition! Tradition....etc.

Took Rachel on Saturday to see "Fiddler on the Roof" while Drew put together the last of the stuff we bought at IKEA -- Rachel's desk. Before we left, I insisted that Rachel write thank-you notes while I started on our (very belated) holiday cards; I intend to finish them up this week and into the weekend. I feel bad for not getting them out earlier, but sometime in early-ish January is still okay, right? Right??

We both dressed up for the performance at Arena Stage, which is a gorgeous theater venue on the waterfront. The play was at an "in the round" theater, and we had excellent seats, plenty of room for Rachel to see the characters coming up and down the aisles. During the "Sabbath Prayer" sequence, at the top of each aisle was a woman cast member standing over lit candles, with two cast members on either side; it was quite lovely. Rachel LOVED the performance -- she howled at all the funny lines, and she kept repeating the one in which Tevye looks up and says, "As the Good Book says..." and then finishes, "Why should I tell YOU what the Good Book says?" She thought that was quite funny.

Drew kindly drove us to and from the performance, since between the driving rain and Rachel's crutches, we would have had a long journey there and back on the Metro (and driving took only 15 minutes each way). When we got home Rachel and I oohed and aahed over her desk, and we finished putting the last of her loose stuff in drawers and in a bin in her closet. Then I washed the sheets in the guest room, where all of Rachel's books and assorted ephemera have been living for the past week, tidied up and so now Rachel Jones, who returns to us tonight, has a clean room to sleep in (with a different bookcase full of all my Africa books). I swear, it looks like whole new house upstairs.

Then we all went downstairs for Family Movie Night, We rented a cute animated movie about wolves, which actually turned out to be pretty good, and I ate sushi while Rachel and Drew had pizza, and then we put Rachel to bed and Drew and I continued with the episodes we're watching from the first season of "House of Cards." We love that show. If we were younger, we'd probably binge-watch it. Altogther, it was a very nice, relaxing day.