And life goes on

Behold the wonderfulness.
Why, yes. That is Thayer's famous peach-apricot vanilla spice ice cream on top.

What can I say? Calvin's Day was a delight. The day after was a bit of an emotional hangover (well, and I worked for 10 hours, so that).

We slept in, played games and wrote while David ran, had breakfast out, went to the aquarium and got to touch a slipper lobster along with rays and anemone, went to the zoo where an orangutan stuck her tongue out at me and the otters were very playful, and came home and prepared a big feast together.

At dinner, I asked the kids what having this day meant to them, partly probing to try to find out if having a dead brother whom they never knew is socially awkward for them. "Having the day off from school" and "We get to play all day" were the answers. Those are fine answers. When I asked what they tell people about it, Z said what she has said before, "I just say I have an older brother but he isn't alive," and O nodded and said, "That's pretty much what I tell people too."

And Thursday was just another day, which is partly why is was hard. March 20 is a day we hold apart from the rest of life. As David has observed, it is pretty much the only day of the year that we tell the world to get lost and we do exactly as we please. Every other day, including March 21, we are overcommitted and overextended, because ... that's who we are. We are interested in many things. We like to be involved. We want to devour the world. I don't think there is any great pathology there. And I do try to carve out the downtime within that -- for myself and especially for the kids -- but it is sometimes, maybe, too hectic. I think a lot about the idea of a "day of rest" not for religious observance, just for, well ... rest, on a variety of levels. At least a half a day of rest? That much we manage to do more often.

Reading: Not really, but we did watch Hugo. The kids had seen in it in the theater, but it was the first time for David and me. We watched over the course of three nights. I love the simplicity of the storytelling, the utter investment (and therefor lack of need for narrative justification) in the given circumstances. Also, I love how much it loves art.

Writing: Who? Me? The butt yearns for the seat.

Dinner: For Calvin's feast: David made meatballs. He and O made pasta sauce. I made steamed artichokes and invented peach-apricot vanilla spice ice cream. And Z and I made Moosewood fudge brownies. It was a meal I was glad to eat.

For the day after Calvin's feast, David made a meatball pizza with the leftover meatballs and sauce.  Love. I love this man. And as Z said, "It's a two pizza week! To make up for not having pizza Monday last week."

Soundtrack: I adore the fact that Scorsese scored the emotional Melies' memory scenes in Hugo with Satie. It was fucking perfect. And period appropriate!

Random thing: I bought pastries at Luna Bakery to take to a meeting Thursday morning. There is something about a white bakery box that is indescribably lovely to me. The box itself -- its proportions and clean whiteness. The contents, to be sure. But the very idea of bakery-ness. The great pleasure of living in a world where a bakery and its boxes exist. This is shiny.