Summary post of a holiday weekend

No deep thoughts here.

Our favorite animal on Sunday. When they extend their wings it is breathtaking.

Friday: half day at work then family time, meeting new twin babies time, and pre-Easter celebration with the in-laws time. Good times, despite my raging PMS. My mother-in-law set up seasonally appropriate activities for the kids. O obliged with very methodical dye work before dinner, and Z with concentrated cookie cutting and decorating after. In between, they insisted I come outside and play catch with them, and I got to talk with my father-in-law about his dream life, which he is beginning to think might reveal something about what goes on in his mind, if only he knew how to interpret it (this despite his longheld disdain for all things Freud).

Saturday: sleep in, then writing time (including avoiding writing, futzing with writing, getting rid of writing, moving writing around, and also some actual writing), house cleaning time, family lunch, women's plays at the first SWAN Day Cleveland (thanks, Deb, for organizing this), and a lovely, lovely indulgent evening with my boy -- he got to play outside in *warmth* while I did some financial work, then we went shopping for Legos (for a gift and with for himself with his own money). He put his new Lego set together while I made mac and cheese and futzed in the kitchen and listened to Splendid Table. Then we at Phineas and Ferb shaped macaroni while watching Phineas and Ferb - 3 episodes! - and then we played a round Plants vs Zombies after snuggling up in for bed. Bliss for the boy.

Sunday: Up early with David to orchestrate an egg hunt, and talk over coffee (after I was done having a mini freak out and take it out on David session about the anxieties of life - public apologies to my mate), then kids up, eggs hunted, breakfast eaten (David and Z's leftovers from Li Wah ... chicken and chinese broccoli - wow! this is my kind of breakfast!), car packed, and off to ... the Columbus Zoo! to meet up with my mom and my sister and frolic with the animals. We have determined that my mother, who is about to retire, should keep a herd of pygmy goats, or flying foxes. We tried to have dinner at a local Indian restaurant, but when we turned into the parking lot of the shopping plaza, we found it had been demolished. At the hotel, I was happy to find the pool was very heated, and unhappy that the wi-fi is expensive.

Reading: I have misplaced two books : IB Singer: A Life, and Alix Kates Shulman's Good Enough Daughter. If you have seen my (library) copies lying around somewhere, please let me know.

Writing: Yeah, but I am really resisting getting into some hard parts. By self-diagnosis, I know that I just need to lock myself in a room without internet and do several hours of exploratory writing on the bits/events/turns/emotions/character moments/sequences I need to work on without reference to the current manuscript. Then I can figure out how to get that back into the whole (or discard it or whatever).

Dinner: O was also listening to Splendid Table with me while putting together his Lego Star Wars laser cannon or whatever it is, and as we were clearing our macnchz dishes, he commented that the recipe they had discussed for tart pan-roasted chipeas with olives and barley sounded "really delicious, and probably good for you ... and really easy too." Look for this on the menu this week, and the recipe for salmon cakes in the same episode.

Soundtrack: O likes to drum along with Topper Headon of The Clash.

Random thing: My father-in-law shared with me a recurring dream he has where he is in the bank he used to work in, only it is huge, blocks and blocks of interconnected lobbies and an enormous bank of elevators, all of which go to different floors. Inside some of the elevators the decoration is so elaborate that it is impossible to even figure out where the buttons are let alone know what floor it will take you to.