“Not Three Good Men Unhanged in all of England”

So last week our senior editor had jotted down a few notes to get a head start on Sunday’s entry, but when Sunday came he was, as usual, more indolent than enterprising and the blog proper never got written. But not wanting the notes to go to waste, we here expand them into a catch-up entry.

Monday (March 10): The thing about hair is that it is always either growing or falling out, and in Julia’s case it does only the former. Lia decided today that it was time for a haircut. Of course Julia likes to sit still about as well as she likes to swallow rusted nails, so it was considerable of a chore for Lia to execute this resolve. But the results are felicitous. Lia had worried that Julia might fret about looking something less like a traditional princess, but whatever sorrow Julia felt at this lessening was overwhelmed by her gleeful embrace of a more momentous likeness. “Callie!” she cried upon seeing the mirror for the first time after the shearing. She then turned to Lia and, when at last she could put her open-mouthed wonder into words, exuberated thus: “Mommy! Callie!” She never stopped beaming until bedtime and smiled faintly even after falling asleep. In the evening we went to a birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese’s for the four-year-old son of one of Lia’s visiting teachees. Each guest was given a cup full of game tokens, and the girls thus reveled in a world of wonders. The greatest wonder of all, of course, was the carousel, an uninspiring three-pony getup that rotates at a snail’s pace to the beat of an annoying ditty. The horses don’t even bob up and down. No matter: Eli adored it extravagantly, clung to her pony with desperate resolve, would try nothing else, simply sat and glowed as she spun round and round, peremptorily demanding another token when the music stopped. Julia was only slightly less obsessive about the carousel; there was a horse-back video game which she tried a time or two (she lost miserably; she never learned to use the reins but did figure out that one could make the beast jump by pushing a button that read “JUMP”; in a typical race the other steeds shot out of the slips while Julia’s mount meandered a few steps forward and began jumping in place; Richard Simmons meets Churchill Downs). When it came time for the ceremonial serenade of the birthday boy Mr. Cheese himself, together with an unenthusiastic fly dancer, took the stage and with all the noxious blaring of a manufactured fanfare conveyed the birthday greetings of the institution that bares his name. Lia chided Justin for failing to respond at the appropriate moments (Chuck E. squeaked that, “We say ‘Happy!’ You say ‘Birthday!’” but Justin didn’t). Julia took full advantage of a feature whereby the kids could stand on stage and the miracles of technology reproduced their image on every screen in the establishment. She was much reassured by these technological confirmations that her haircut was every bit as glorious as the mirrors indicated. She emerged as not only telegenic but a formidable dancer. Between bites of cake Eli pined after the carousel.

Tuesday (March 11): When the girls woke up this morning Eli looked at Julia and cooed, “Callie!” Julia, who though she treasures the likeness remains fiercely conscious of her own identity, signed the letter “J” indignantly (we don’t know where she learns these things; Primary perhaps; or Joy School).

Wednesday (March 12): This morning Lia was in the bathroom getting ready. Eli, twice rebuffed in the attempted effectuation of her perfervid desire to climb onto the toilet and make havoc of the shelves behind, waited outside the door, biding her time. When Lia was ready, she opened the bathroom door to find Eli innocently pacing back and forth like any harmless flaneur. As Lia made her exit, Eli saw her chance and seized it. Crouching down in an effort, we can only presume, to make herself invisible, Eli waddled cautiously through the narrow space between her mother’s unguarded foot and the closing door. “I’m in,” she inwardly exulted. She crept toward the toilet at a quickened pace, her face illuminated by the bright triumph of parental deception, when, just when her goal was within reach, a laughing Lia scooped her up from behind and tickled her into submission. Foiled again.

During the day Lia and the girls went to our local children’s museum, where Lia bought a universal children’s museum pass, thus committing us to go to far more museums than ever we would in a state of nature or in a perfectly efficient market economy. Undesired consumption is often the cost of a good deal.

While Justin was at bishopric and Institute (now held on the same night), Lia and the girls did a web-cam session with the LaDukes. Unfortunately, Julia and Callie were both more interested in seeing their dazzling selves on the small screen than in seeing an old friend; each more excited to hear her own echo than the voice of a distant comrade. Vanity conquers all.

Thursday (March 13): The girls slept in mercifully until after 8 o’clock. When they awoke, Eli excitedly invited Julia to “come get in my cribbie.” The girls think nothing is funnier than to have Julia climb into Eli’s crib first thing in the morning and then watch giggling together as Justin, coming to retrieve them, looks in bewildered astonishment at Julia’s empty bed. But Julia would have none of it on this morning. “No!” she cried imperiously. “I will NOT come into your cribbie!” Then, a bit more tenderly, she explained that, “I have to go into the living room to do my exercises.” What exercises she had in mind remains a mystery. In the event, she raced to the room of her parents who, hearing her coming, hid themselves under their covers. Julia wept when she saw this, not because she was fooled by the ruse, but because hiding in the morning is her own special prerogative, jealously guarded.

Friday (March 14): Today marked five years since Justin returned from his mission. Event-filled years by any standard. Joy School was at our house, at which the junior jubilants made gardens. Jackson Peacock overheard our upstairs neighbors grumbling as they walked past about this pillaging of the soil and made them pay for it by proclaiming loudly and well within ear shot that, “Those people said, ‘Why are they taking our dirt?’ I heard them—those people over there. They said, ‘Why are they taking our dirt?’” Lia resisted the manifold temptations that presented themselves as creative ways of returning the begrudged dirt to the begrudging neighbors. We had an indubitably unforgettable date in the evening. Neither of us remembers it.

Saturday (March 15): We had dinner tonight at the home of our friend and ward member, Yifru Hailu, who hosted us, Kirk and Gretchen Cheney, and Kirk and Justin’s classmate, Ronan Farrow. Ronan is the youngest member of the class (20), a wunderkind of the first degree who was, before law school, a UNICEF envoy to Darfur in the Sudan. His essays about the genocide in Darfur have appeared in every paper our readers have heard of. More recently he wrote a piece about Ethiopia that appeared in the L.A. Times. Yifru, an Ethiopian native, was moved by the piece and asked Justin if he could arrange a meeting with the classmate who wrote it. This dinner was the product of that request. Ronan is also extremely kind and gracious, and reminds us more than a little of Justin’s lifelong friend, David Hedengren (another wunderkind, though less of a “kind” with the passing years). Before Ronan arrived Yifru built a fire in the fireplace, much to the fascination and delight of our pre-juvenile, incipient pyromaniacs. Yifru is a magnificent cook; dinner was wonderful.

But it didn’t quite proceed without a hitch. Julia broke a glass while engaged in the important activity of dancing through the house with a glass in hand. Eli’s cup was unbreakable, but it was not, alas, a sippy-cup, and Eli’s passion for cranberry juice was equaled only by her delight in drinking it from the chalice of a grown-up. She voiced her content visibly through a much-stained shirt that left her looking in the end like King Henry gone once more into the breach once too often, and audibly with a well-timed and mighty eructation. But the biggest failure of all was Kirk, who was expected to hammer at least three plates-full of the excellent repast but who, with an abashed allusion to stomach problems earlier in the week, failed to finish one.

If this wasn’t enough fun for one evening (it most assuredly was), it was followed by a trip, in tandem with the indomitable Cheneys, to Sander and Bianca’s for S’mores, sundaes, and True Colors. Kirk won this last, mostly by sabotaging Justin, and Lia took dead last, mostly by playing badly. The girls were kept at bay by Princess clips on Youtube, with thanks to Sander for the loan of his laptop. It was a great night, though we paid dearly in the wee hours of the morning for putting the girls to bed at 11.

Sunday (March 16, 2008): Justin was released as executive secretary today, together with the rest of the bishopric. His good friend, Mike Turner, however, was for his premortal sins elevated from second counselor to bishop. Lia mourned for Rhonda but rejoiced for herself. Justin was sadder than he thought he would be.