Friday, May 21, 2010

School nears its end



The photo here is of Veeka - in hot pink pants - singing a song with her classmates called "On top of spaghetti." She graduates from pre-K next Friday night.
Meanwhile her mommy is recovering today from very minor foot surgery which means she is pretty much confined to the house this weekend. Again, thank God for health insurance, although the premiums will being going up this year. Last night before the surgery I was out madly planting half of my new shade garden because it's pretty hard to use a shovel when you're on crutches for two weeks.
Because Mommy is feeling so pokey, Veeka is being farmed out overnight to the very kind parents of the little girl sitting in front of Veeka in the wagon. The girls really like each other although together they can be pretty devilish. Not long after I snapped that photo, they both joined hands and bolted out of the front yard, ran half a block down the hill and crossed the street alone. I and her parents were tearing out our hair looking for them.
Oma and Opa arrive Sunday for a few days and Veeka asks about their arrival every other minute.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Birthday month


It's been quiet here - sort of - as we await Oma's birthday this Saturday and mine next Wednesday. I got into lots of hot water at my workplace for getting quoted here in our competition about the sudden presence of reptiles in our newsroom because - among other expenses to save money - my newspaper is no longer paying for an exterminator to keep out the mice and snakes. Which is a little dicey when you're situated next door to the 400-acre National Arboreteum where creepy crawleys abound. The story came out the morning of the White House Correspondents Dinner, so to say the top brass at the newspaper was less than pleased would be understating things a bit.
My brother Stephen commented on the story here. My snakes quote got picked up everywhere. Not quite the notoriety I was looking for.
Veeka is fine and she and I are posing next to a fountain at Rice University where this photo was taken two months ago.
My parents, I must add, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on Thursday.