I’m home from work today with the kids, observing MLK Day. Simon is currently engaged in his favorite activity—watching cartoons. My buddy, Winny G. is sitting right beside me playing computer games, which happens to be his favorite activity. I’m blogging. Win and I are listening to U2’s Rattle and Hum. We’re all happy.
The Bee Movie is playing at the Riverview, a “dollar theater” across The River from where we live, so we’ll venture out later to see it. I love taking the boys to the movies. We get popcorn and M&Ms and escape for an hour and a half.
Despite—or maybe because of—the dangerously cold weather, we had a great weekend. Granted, the kids went a tiny bit stir-crazy. Simon was sick for most of the weekend (the school nurse sent him home on Friday with a 100.6 temp). On Saturday, we had some wonderful cuddle time on the couch in the den. Simon watched Tom and Jerry while I read Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon.
This addictive mystery is set in Venice, and it’s the 16th in a series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. The mystery’s plot is fine, but our sleuth and the Italian setting are the compelling elements for me. Brunetti is an aesthete. He starts his day with espresso and a pastry, because that’s civilized. And, there’s a marvelous scene where, faced with the civil-servant union strike that would keep him from going to work, Brunetti stops at the bookstore and,
Because he made it a rule never to leave a bookstore without buying something, he settled for a long out-of-print translation of the Marquis de Custine’s 1839 travels in Russia, printed in Torino in 1977: Lettere dalla Russia. The period was closer to the present than ordinarily would have interested him, but it was the only book that appealed, and he was in a hurry, strike or not.
This book is on the Conversation with Books list. My friend Caryl and I will attend the Conversation at our alma mater on Wednesday, and I can't wait. This event gives me something to look forward to during the cruelest month of the year. Also, I plan to read more books in this series.
On Saturday night, Winston and I attended the monthly potluck dinner with four other families from his old preschool. The Lins hosted and made tacos. Win had a blast wrestling with the five-year-olds while I caught up with the adults. It was a nice evening.
Sunday started with yoga at Helena’s. Six people, including Helena’s husband, participated, so the “studio” was somewhat full, but it felt so good to move my body. The cold weather does a number on the body, obviously. But even when I’m wearing my down coat and have a minimum amount of exposed flesh, I still find myself putting on the “Minnesota earmuffs” (how CSC PE instructor, Alice Swanson, described the way one scruntches their shoulders up, toward their ears, when they’re cold). Today my shoulders and arms are achy, in part from yoga, but also from the residual effects of my body trying feebly to keep itself warm.
After yoga, I spent the afternoon tinkering in the kitchen. As part of the 2008 Great Freezer Clean-Out, I removed two pheasants and thawed them to make stock. The meat eventually starred in a pheasant-andouille gumbo, an attempt to transport myself to New Orleans, a warm memory from 2007.
And, now I take my leave to spend some QT with my boys. Happy MLK Day, observed, to you.
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