April! April! April!
That's right, it's gone! It included a whirlwind trip back East to NJ, NY and Boston; crazy 8th grade projects and crazy 8th graders at school; Eric's new part-time Follow the Dream job, which keeps him working all day Saturday and Sunday; the news that I am teaching 6th grade history next year (!), monster birthday preparations for the world's lowest-keyed birthday; and mad hula. Crazy!
So, Ainsley's birthday party was last weekend, scheduled for our neighborhood park. The Bay Area reported variable weather, but here in SJ it rained. It teased a bit, but then it really rained. This is about how the day went down:
7:30 AM: Amity at park, claiming three tables. Last year there were four separate parties happening at the same time. Cloudy but dry.
8:00 AM: Mother-in-law takes over waiting at tables. A&A go to diddams for balloons
8:30 AM: Skies open on MIL.
9:00 AM: Balloons acquired. MIL soaked.
9:30 AM: Park wet. MIL wet. Balloons wet. Mood damp.
10:00 AM: Decision made to move inside. Sad plastic-sealed note with sad little map left at park with sodden ballons. But wait! Entire party is based around rainbow parachute games! Where to do parachute in tiny tiny house?
10:15 AM: Garage!
10:20 AM: Oh no! Car with dead battery cocooned in garage! No room for parachute.
10:25 AM: Push car out of garage with help of neighbor (weekend stand-in husband, for tasks of this nature)
10:26 AM: Oh no! Car windows rolled down, rain pouring in!
10:28 AM: Jump-start stupid pre-rolled vehicle to roll up windows.
10:30 AM: Panic! 14 kids * 1.5 adults per kid + rain / tiny house = bad idea!
After all this, the party was actually lots of fun. Parachute worked great in the garage (preschoolers were TOTAL SUCKERS for the parachute -- I was like Jesus Christ for hooking that up), we all ate food on (quick thinking!) "picnic blankets" spread over the carpet on the living room floor, and the completely lowered expectations worked in our favor (no one could judge me for a crappy party when it was supposed to be AT THE PARK. You know, with the pony and the bounce house and all. Or maybe not any of that last stuff).
Our garden is growing, despite the snails. For a while I was mastering them by sneaking out at midnight and six AM and hucking them into the neighbors' yard, but they had six long hours to eat every vine veggie we had planted, so I had to go non-orgo and encircle the garden with a ring of toxic snail death. Now in the morning, there are piles of dead snails littering the garden battlements and we huck them into the yard without a fight.
And on the hula front, my halau is preparing for ho'ike, this big hula extravaganza that is happening on June 6th. I am in two short simple hulas that defy my every attempt to master them. I anticipate bringing shame and dishonor to the sacred art of the hula and to my hula brothers and sisters in just four short weeks.
Not tons of time for reading. Plus I think I'm getting old. I just love me the Genre Novels and the Nonfiction now, just like granddads the world over. Behold:
Nonfiction, trash fiction, nonfiction and some weird mystery/literary hybrid which was CREEPY AS HELL and which I highly recommend. Plus my Obama-hating dad is all on my case to read the Federalist Papers and document the liberties I'm forgoing in the name of collectivization. Well, hell. First I need to get some money before I can be mad at the government for not letting me keep it.
Comments
What is Eric's follow the Dream Job? Does it involve music? So interested....
Oh my -- 6th grade history, huh? You will be fabulous. They love you. And look at all of those old man non fiction books that you gobble up. You could teach the class right now with your hands tied behind your back and blind folded.
I am NOT going to be teaching 1st grade next year. But I am still going through the wonderful list of read a loud books that you so generously gave me at the beginning of the school year. Right now we are in the middle of "My Father's Dragon" I had never read it before. They are loving it. Thank you.
Also -- the whole slug and snail thing? I am feeling your pain. Last week Kevin collected a huge water glass with snails. All the way to the top. Grossing me out. (We can't huck them over the wall to the neighbors, as we live in a townhouse....) So Kevin brought them in and put them in the garbage disposal. So nasty. But it worked! Oh, and Sluggo. That is what I have heard you should use for getting rid of them. We use Corey's slug bait (poison) But Sluggo isn't harmful to animals or children. But it isn't at target, therefor, I have not yet purchased it. This weekend.
Goodness -- lots of changes for next year! Are you happy about not teaching 1st grade? Still teaching art? Is it because you would be teaching Margaret? I kinda want to know how your WHOLE YEAR went. Was it like the first year all over again? I worry that mine will be like that next year.
Regarding snails, I too heard that Sluggo is the way to go, but being BROKE, we had to get the cheap death and give extensive instructions about not eating the "sand."
Finally, if it's not at Target (or Trader Joe's), it doesn't exist, as far as I'm concerned.