I took Katrina to the dance place where I used to take classes and did several recitals. As I learned when I got out of college, dance is a lot more convenient than ice-skating, especially when the nearby ice-skating rink is SO convenient but SO lame. Katrina enjoyed watching the "junior" class.
I ran into the director of the dance studio, a brilliant talented fabulous dancer who I loved in many ways, but his perfectionism and intensity slowed his classes down too much for me, a recreational dancer who was never going to be professional and needed classes to keep moving instead of picking apart down to the last detail -- usually my style! Still, it was great talking to him and just being there again, especially showing off my beautiful sprite of a daughter. He told me he'd just had his 4th boy, only 5 weeks old.
After visiting the dance studio, I gratefully returned my borrowed ski stuff, and Katrina had an unexpected hourlong playdate with my friend's 2006 daughter while we chatted. They were so cute together playing with the girl's dollhouse, and she sweetly loaned Katrina a stuffed animal.
Back home, lunch for kids, then time for kung fu. I went grocery-shopping during Julian's class, but watched the last 10 minutes of it. I really like it and hope he continues, but he sounds so-so on the idea.
The sifu shows him this "stand down" (I think that's what he called it) position. I like how he corrects Julian's hand position. I'm told Kung Fu is taught more strictly than other activities, though I think these guys are actually pretty loose.
In the same plaza as kung fu, there's an odd little Russian market with really inexpensive produce. I've been going there more and more, especially after discovering that I can get tomatoes there for a quarter of the price than at Whole Foods. I'm hooked on this wonderful roasted tomato-onion soup that I've been making, and was shocked the first time I realized that 3 pounds of tomatoes can cost $15. And now that all the kids like mangoes, it's a good source of inexpensive mangoes, which can also add up in bulk. It's small and dinky and packed with odd interesting items -- and it's always busy.
At the market, I ran into a mom from Gabriel's class and her son too, who I recognized separately from Gabriel recognizing him at the physics show last weekend. It struck me that this was as close to community as it gets around here. All it takes is a few small businesses close together, even in a suburban strip mall.
I unpacked groceries, worked with Gabriel on his Star Of The Week presentation due Monday, trimmed Katrina's bangs, redirected Julian from pestering Katrina 100 times, found an activity craft for Katrina, did some mail-sorting...finally around 4pm my strange late night caught up with me, and still with having eaten nothing more than a muffin my kind friend offered me that morning, crashed for a nap.
I made dinner for the family and my tomato soup (which no one else will eat but I don't care), caught up on Facebook and blogged. Other than the nap it feels like I've been in motion all day -- but my to-do list hasn't shrunk at all.
1/29/2010
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