Tuesday the boys went back to school AND THERE WAS MUCH REJOICING.
Actually, we had a really lovely mellow time at home. A lot of the boys' issues were tamped down by the lack of homework and a couple extra hours of TV and WII. I was kind of sad to send them back to school.
Here's the Goose in Evan's beloved Brooks Brothers fedora. Evan bought it 15+ years in Texas. Since then, he has worn it through a multitude of New York winters and rainstorms, and the kids adopted it for a million playactings. It was kind of beat up when we moved to CA, and THEN we realized that we live a couple blocks away from
Baron Hats. Those of you that follow us obsessively on Facebook might remember that we drove past it our first week in CA and saw Jack White parking his car and heading into the store. (Me: Did you see who that was? E: I dunno, Johnny Depp? A: I am almost positive that that was Jack White, and the fact that he was headed into a famous but local and privately-owned hat shop confirms it for me. E: Yes, dear.)
Evan had emailed me a Christmas list and on it, he had a $90 replica Indiana Jones fedora. Instead of forwarding that request to family members with deeper pockets than I, I took his battered old hat to Baron. I asked then how much to clean and reblock it -- $45. I spent a little time wandering around their awesome crowded shop/museum and then asked how much for a similar hat. The ones that had the same shape were a brighter color (obviously for film, not everyday wear.) They got out one of the hat makers guys, he peered at it for a couple minutes, and said, ahh, three, three-fiddy, four hudded. FOUR HUNDRED BUCKS!
Needless to say, I got it cleaned and blocked. Evan was very happy with it and he looks quite dashing in it. And if you ever win the lottery and want to buy him a new hat may I suggest the Cliffhanger Redux?
We also took all those lemons we got from our neighbor and made lemonade. We decanted it into a glass milk bottle, tossed a couple of Trader Joe's cookies in a ziplock, and dropped off lemonade and cookies at Evan's office.
On cue for the First Days Back From Break, Tuesday afternoon at the park, Oscar Lost. His. S#!t. Wednesday, Lucy broke down. Thursday, Arlo lost it right before his first meeting with our new pediatrician to determine if he should be referred for occupational therapy and a complete workup by a developmental pediatrician. Nice timing, kid. (If you are wondering: yes, we are getting the workup. He is still happy and healthy and proceeding nicely, but we are positioning him to avail himself of all the services he needs and can get from our school system.)
But before we had that appointment, I picked up Arlo at school and since it was Thursday (The Day I Have Arlo to Myself for an Hour While the Goose is in School) we stopped by a parking lot across from the Central Library on Glenoaks.
We had kind of ignored the Rose Parade this year. I was barely aware of the existence of the parade, since I grew up less than a hundred miles from the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, visited it (freezing and always having to pee) as a child, and then as an adult seeing it through the windows of my beloved workplace, DC Comics, with bagels and coffee and lots of my colleague's families. And I was kind of flabbergasted that people that AREN'T in NY watch the Macy's parade! SO it's not crazy that I never paid attention to the Rose Parade.
But now I live in Burbank, which takes great pride in making one of the few volunteer-made floats that isn't connected with a corporation. We've been seeing designs for the float at various city events so when I got an email from our local library that the Burbank float would be on display on the way to the Goose's preschool, I knew what Arlo and I would do on our Thursday afternoon together.
The float was amazing and Arlo and I were really excited by it. The flowers had died at the point but the design was a lot of fun. Plus there was a food truck!
I didn't read the schedule right so there was Cuban food, not Vietnamese, as I had hoped. We stopped off at Mickey D's for Arlo's once-every-other-month Happy Meal, checked out the float, and I ordered a sandwich and some roquettes. I loved the roquettes (a fried ball of mashed potatoes with a nugget of spiced beef inside) but the sandwich reminded me that I don't like Cuban sandwiches.
We love food trucks.
Aro and I went to our favorite park and eat our lunch under a shady tree and Arlo cadged some koi food from a random mom. Brand Park is in Glendale, right next to Burbank. It has a lot of Armenian families, and since today (1/5/12) was the Armenian Church Christmas, the local schools were closed and the parks were full.
We had our doc's appointment. Came home and relived Evan of childcare duties so he could go back to work. Fed the kids rice and beans and cheese; wrangled them into bed. Evan got home late; helped with the tail end of bedtime.
I made a huge mess of mussels and scallops. It was yummy and spicy and divine.
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