Month: June 2015

Gene invited me to Riderwood on Friday afternoon to see a film of La Traviata by Verdi in the main auditorium.  Gene introduced me to his pal – these two put on operas every Friday.  Gene asked me to go see this particular opera because it’s staged beautifully on location in France.  Here’s the most famous song (the only song to which I recognized the melody) from the film – the drinking song!  So starts my Italian day…

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In the evening, we watched Roman Holiday.  I’d never seen it before.

Priness Ann says (in response to a question about her favorite city) : Rome! By all means, Rome. I will cherish my visit here in memory as long as I live.

And Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn don’t get together in the end!  She needs to go back to her duties as a princess and is turning down being with GP – she says (with regards to her duty as a princess): Your Excellency, I trust you will not find it necessary to use that word again. Were I not completely aware of my duty to my family and to my country, I would not have come back tonight… or indeed ever again!

Yesterday, I went to Edda’s elementary school graduation.  I guess they call it a promotion ceremony – not a “graduation”.  It was held at Churchill HS – as a Wootton-ite, I enjoyed saying that I had never stepped foot into Churchill, but I can no longer claim that status.

Since Edda’s elementary school is not our home school, I know not a single parent at Edda’s school.

When Edda’s name was called by Maureen, she got up, with the help of Ms. W and walked across that stage and shook everyone’s hand.  All the parents, god bless them, clapped the whole time Edda made her way across the stage.  

I burst into tears.

The principal gave the graduation speech before the kids got their diploma.  She had four pieces of advice:

1. Work hard.
2. Have a good attitude.
3. Be nice.
4. Believe in yourself.

I think that’s pretty spot on.

Keyla, our new au pair from Argentina, is amazingly talented at doing hair.  Everyday is a new masterpiece.

Jeremy is stuck in Boston tonight.  He made the quickest trip ever, left at 5:30 am, back at 1 am tonight.

Vince helped me out today by mowing the lawn.  Halfway through, the mowed over the electrical cord and spliced it into three pieces (luckily no one was electrocuted).  He also deep friend onion rings and introduced Keyla to Ramen noodles (which she loved).

Edda went in today to do a blood draw for Lyme.  Hopefully, it’ll come back negative.  I showed Keyla the piece of paper I had to sign that said – in case insurance turns our bill down, we will charge you $785.  Keyla’s eyes widened.  You mean for two vials of blood?  Yup.  You better believe it.

Vickey and Bert came over to spend Saturday with me and they were looking forward to having Chinese food (Rockville is the epicenter of Chinese food in the DMV).  Chinese people have an odd habit of opening very similar named restaurants close to each other or in former locations of good restaurants and we mistakenly went to a mediocre Chinese restaurant thinking it was an excellent Chinese restaurant.  We managed to pick up along the way, our neighbors Alice and Sophie.  Although the food was sub-par, the company was excellent and a good time was had by all.  I love being around toddlers who are not my toddlers.  I got to pull out all my toddler trains, toddler animals, toddler books and toddler coloring pencils.

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Jeremy came home for dinner on Saturday and Vince immediately started deep frying (funnel cakes).  I do not let him deep fry when I’m the only adult at home.  I’m afraid of the two inches of insanely hot oil.

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There is this viral, respiratory bug going around that is just been a doozy to kick – two little ones with Rett are in PICUs in the DC area.  I went to visit Caroline on Thursday night.  I read her some Harry Potter (who doesn’t love a few chapters of Harry Potter, even when they feel like crap) and brought some food for her mom.  It’s been a long week for C, but I know she is a strong little girl and I’m looking forward to reader her more of Harry Potter soon (not in the PICU though!).  Lots of love, miss caroline.  Feel better!

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Finally, Jeremy saw Ben and Mary Ann in California.  Mary Ann is doing amazing on her new experimental immunotherapy and is feeling wonderfully well!  They are taking advantage of her new strength and going to Hawaii after Julia’s graduation from high school later this week.  What a great joy to see this happen.

This was my shopping list yesterday: cheddar cheese, blue cheese, havarti cheese and american cheese.  And above is what the cheese aisle looked like.  Ummm, I took it as a bad omen.

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The day continued and I ended up with a KFC bucket in my fridge.  I’m entering a parallel reality now.

I took Vince to see the dentist today.  I love our pediatric dentist, I wish she could be my dentist.  I want to watch cartoons while I get my teeth cleaned, I want to get a sticker after I’m done.  If I have a cavity, I totally want to go to the little outer-space-themed room and get a little nitrous.  So my heart broke a little today when Vince, after eyeballing a squirming two year old in the waiting room, requested to no longer go to this particular dentist because it was too baby-ish for him.

While he was getting his teeth cleaned, I had to go over to the admin and whisper to her that Vince didn’t want to come anymore and she sighed sympathetically and said that they are all like this.  That when they turn middle-school-ish. a lot of them don’t want to come to the pediatric dentist anymore.

I convinced Vince to go back at least for one more appointment to seal his last adult molars and then, I guess, we are moving on.

Jeremy’s in Mill Valley this week.  He left on Monday and will be back on Saturday afternoon.  I am struggling with Jeremy’s increase in travel and, to be fair,  I’ve been, in turn, making Jeremy feel bad for being away from the house so much.  Anyways, it’s a work in progress.  But I think June is a wash.  We are just going to get through June (I say this on the 2nd day of June!  ha!), re-establish a baseline and go from there.

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I hung out at Vince’s scout meeting tonight.  It was a cool evening, nice to spend it under the trees.

Edda and I went to Five Guys on Saturday.  I ordered the junior cheeseburger with tomato, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, mayo and mustard.  Edda’s was plain.  We shared a huge pile of fries.

Edda is very dainty, wanted to eat her burger with a knife and fork.  Cut into pie-shaped wedge pieces.

Then we concluded our exciting outing by heading to the local grocery store.   Girlfriend, don’t zone out on me.  We got stuff to do!  No napping on the job.