LEAVES! LEAVES! LEAVES!
Raking leaves around here is an endless, thankless project. Thanks to my Mom for doing a ton of it already in the past few days. I thought it would be worthwhile (and depressing) to keep a tally this year.
Leaf-raking 2013:
11/8: 4 bags
11/18: 13 bags
11/20: 21 bags!
Total (and still, there are leaves everywhere!): 38
Yikes. And special thanks to Mom, who did most of that raking.
Lucy's Birthday!
She's 6! That's just crazy! See the Flickr photos for details. For her Birthday, she asked for the following:
+ a broken cell phone
+ something with super-heroes
+ some candy
kid needs to work on aiming a little higher.
Hockey (aka Skating Lessons)
Lucy has been taking lessons every Saturday for a while now over at the local ice rink. She wears full hockey gear for this, though she's really just there to learn how to skate. The larger program's goal, of course, is to teach the kids to skate so they can play hockey (why else, one might ask, would one want to learn?). She's really enjoying it and getting better every week. Here she is:
Cinematic Titanic!
Jake and I went to see one of the last performances of Cinematic Titanic, celebrating (well, skewering) bad movies. The particular bad movie was really horrifyingly spectacularly bad: 1973's The Doll Squad, about an all-female spy team. If you don't know what Cinematic Titanic is, it's the live version descendent of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you don't know what Mystery Science Theater 3000 is, then you are likely not the same age as we are, or we likely didn't know you in the period 1992 - 1996. You could read this recent article from the Globe that covered the show. It was a nice reunion with friends and culture past. Also, we had a babysitter.
Opera!
Jake and Elizabeth and I went to the Opera! Not just any opera, the Lizzie Borden Opera. It was a commission by the Boston Lyric Opera about one of my favorite historical figures. A long time ago, Elizabeth and I spent a night in the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, which is in the actual house where the whole axe thing happened. None of us had ever been to an opera, but I thought it would be something different, and the whole Lizzie thing had me (plus, mom was in town, so hey, free babysitting and there were no movies we wanted to see!). Just the week before, Jake and I had gone to see Lysistrata performed by my students, so we were up for some challenging theater. It was a pretty cool night, though I can't say I'm signing up for more opera. There was a children's chorus that was wonderfully creepy, providing the opening and the closing -- particularly the closing of children singing "Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her father forty whacks...." and so on. That part was perfect. My friend who does scenic design warned me that opera involved a lot of what she calls "park and bark," where a singer moves to a space, then sings her thing, and then moves to the next spot, and then the next singer does the same. While the staging was really sparse and interesting -- a big, wide, slightly askew linoleum-covered floor, and just a dining room table with four chairs -- I will say that the movement on the stage seemed very odd and I wasn't quite sure what was going on at times. There were screens showing the words that the characters were singing, which helped a lot, even though it was sung in English. Lizzie walked onto the stage in the opening with an axe in her hand, and chucked it into the dining room table. It stayed there throughout the performance, with characters walking around it all along. Then she busts it out again at the end. Overall, an interesting night, and I'm glad we went.
First Field Trip (foiled)
Lucy's first ever real school field trip was scheduled for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She was really excited, because she was going to get to ride a school bus to it (she has never ridden on a school bus, being a walker, like both her parents before her were). Both the school bus and the whole field trip concept, as well as the actual destination -- a performance of the Eric Carle Brown Bear, Brown Bear story -- were much anticipated.
Then, on Monday afternoon, the dreaded phone call from the school nurse came: Lucy has a fever and is complaining about her sore throat. There's some strep going around -- you might want to get her checked out. Oh no.
Thankfully, our Pedi has evening hours during winter, so we got her in. The nurses were skeptical (she's at 99 degrees -- not even a fever! -- for how long?). But they took her culture, and sent us back to the little room, and lo an behold, a few minutes later, they came in, looking surprised: she's positive! Yargh. The doctor came in a bit after that asking "what seems to be the trouble?" and when I informed him that she was positive for strep, he seemed *really* disappointed that I knew: "oh, she told you?" I mean, what, he was going to have me guess? Anyway, Lucy took the news fine, and heard the doctor say "no school tomorrow," and didn't seem concerned. She was cool with it when we got home, when we took the meds, when she went to bed. I was afraid to bring it up.
About an hour after I had put her down, she started crying "mommy! Mommy!" and I ran up to see her assuming she felt worse. What's wrong? "I just remembered I'm going to miss my field trip!" Oh dear. Not good. So we have promised her another trip (with us) to see another play. So if you hear of any good children's theater, let me know.
I should note that I have vivid memories of missing *my* first field trip, which was supposed to be to the veterinarian, but I couldn't go because I was sick. I was devastated. And I never became a vet.
Also, Lucy then missed the *next* day too because her cough was bad. On schedule for that day: an assembly. She was really bummed. Kid's got some school fun days to be made up to her.
Visitors & Thanksgiving!
We have a houseful for Thanksgiving, with my Mom, Brendan, Jennifer, Luke, and James here (hooray!) for a few days, plus a big Thanksgiving dinner (which we celebrated on Friday).
Here's to celebrating Pie-versity:
That's (clockwise from top): Pumpkin, Pecan, Lemon Merigue, Apple, and Coconut cream (not pictured).
We had a great houseful of kids:
Good times!
There's lots more to report, but for now, there you go. November 2014: a pretty busy & very fun time.
