It seems that Tuesday is my day for updates. Last week flew by, with the children spending quite a lot of time doing homework. S has to read 25 books by June, and keep a reading log of at least 20 minutes reading daily, to be signed weekly by a parent and handed in. On Friday the two of us went to the Takoma Park library, and registered for reading cards. His is on a lanyard, while mine, like all cards here, is small, oblong and has a hole for putting it on my keyring (I put it in my purse anyway). The adult library is mostly a reference library, it seems, at least the fiction section is smaller than the non-fiction - but it turns out that Shakespeare is considered non-fiction, so I need to investigate further. Meanwhile, I borrowed a historical novel and a murder mystery with Eleanor Roosevelt as the detective. S took out a compendium of Marvel comics and, at my insistence, a fantasy novel called "The hunting of the last dragon", by Sherryl Jordan. He began reading it this morning, and had to ask me about quite a few words, so clearly this will be good for him. I told him he could always take out a graphic novel so long as he also took out a real book, too. A didn't want to come to the library - he bought a book by a local author while we were in the Adirondacks, and I hope he will read it. He is starting to react to the change now, and I am trying not to pressure him too much.
Not that I always succeed in that. On Saturday, we went on a very pleasant hike to Mason Neck State park, in northern Virginia. We saw cardinals, white-throated nuthatches and very excitingly, bald eagles. However, a couple of hours into the trip, the boys started squabbling, and this continued on the drive home. When we got confused on the Beltway and took the wrong direction, going counterclockwise instead of clockwise thus extending our journey home by a good 40 minutes, causing ADC and me to become tense and irritable, they would not shut up in the back seat, and we ended up threatening them with confiscation of their weekly pocket money if they did not behave. We had to carry out this threat, and A got very upset, refused to have supper, refused to have a shower, refused to go to bed. We then confiscated his cell phone and left him be. He got up in the morning a sadder and wiser child, especially when the UPS man made his almost-daily visit with cellphone covers for the three of us. A now has a red and black cover, S has a green and black one, and I have a hot pink+jungle swirls one (plus a hot pink stylus, which has made texting a lot quicker).
Sunday was a quiet day at home. It was boiling hot, and A got up very late, having gone to sleep so late the night before. ADC and Sl went shopping by themselves, and came home with lots of different peppers and summer squash - and of course, blue potatoes. Sl would eat blue potatoes every day if he could, it's a pity they are so expensive. We made a very nice ratatouille for supper, with lots of wine in it - we realised on Friday night, after opening a bottle, that we did not have a stopper. Friday night was the first time in a long time that I lit my own candles (finally found tea lights at the Giant supermarket that day), and ADC made challah, which we covered with the cover that M embroidered - another step in making this house home. Further steps were buying good quality pots at Macy's in the Labor Day sale (plus the nice salesman made us apply for a store card and gave us an extra 15% discount), and ordering, at Bed Bath and Beyond online, a set of bedlinen, a knife sharpener (all the non-serrated knives we bought are not sharp. Why? You can buy a firearm anywhere but a kitchen knife is more dangerous?), various storage containers, a hand mixer and cutting mats. Almost all the order arrived today, so that ADCl came home from work to two large boxes of presents in the living room.
On Sunday, calm restored to all, we went on an even longer day trip to another state park in Virginia, Sky Meadow, which was described in the book KM gave A for his bar mitzvah as a butterfly hotspot. It really was that - we saw dozens of them (mostly silvery blues, white admirals, commas, and black swallowtails), and fortunately were able to buy pocket guides to butterflies and plants at the gift shop. Less fortunately, the heat and humidity were really bad (the humidity was around 90%), and S started feeling bad as we were slogging up a hill. We sat at the top of the hill and watched butterflies once we got there, and then split up on the way down - S and I took a short path, and ADC and A took a longer one. Once we reached the shade and started walking downhill, S perked up and discussed superheroes non-stop. After lunch, we took another brief hike to see woodpeckers. We took things very slowly and spent time identifying plants. The American sycamore and black walnut have very different fruits from the familiar European sycamore and walnut. The main flower we saw at Sky Meadow is called butterfly weed, so no wonder it is a butterfly hotspot.
When ADC baked challah, he re-discovered the fact that the oven is gas, not electric. This put paid to any idea I might have had about baking him a birthday cake myself, and instead I bought him a chocolate raspberry truffle cake from Takoma Bistro, and restaurant/bakery in downtown Takoma Park. We had that for dessert tonight after eating supper at an excellent Ethiopian restaurant, Langano, just up the road in Silver Spring. We had twwo combination platters, one meat and one vegetarian, between the four of us, and couldn't finish everything. Interesting , the one lentil dish that tasters familiar was called Misir Wot (wot seems to mean "vegetarian stew", and Misir is obviously Egypt, so presumably that's why). We asked the waitress at the end for the names of the dishes that we had finished, and now we know what to order next time.
We have started a Netflix account. ADC is a little disappointed in the selection available for streaming, as if you don't want TV shows iTunes seems to have more, but I am thrilled to discover that we can - during this first month - order DVDs for free, and Kenneth Branagh's Henry V is available that way. At last I will be able to show the children why Professors Lockhart and Trelawney are in fact great actors. Meanwhile, we watched ParaNorman (the children clutched at Ariel until he said he wasn't sitting between them again, but once it was over they weren't scared at all) and The Return of the Pink Panther over the weekend.
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