We have had difficulties with our internet of late and so, acting on the supposition that something is better than nothing when it comes to blogs, we submit a haphazard pastiche of Justin's Journal, My Pictures, actual blog-ready write-ups, and random comments.
We also worked on domestication. I made some cinnamon rolls that brought in a third place and can of Ghiradelli Hot Chocolate in our ward bake-off, and we made matching skirts without patterns. Here are my three designs:
She's so cool she can wear anything. Eli inherited this brazen fashion sense:
June 21, 2008
Saturday. My first full day back in D.C. after two weeks in Charlotte. It is unspeakably good to be home. The girls slept in until 8:30 (so, of course, did Chari), so Lia and I got some much needed extra rest. After a special waffle breakfast—how I’ve missed Lia’s cooking!—I gave the girls baths and got them ready for a morning on the town.
We rode the Metro to Metro Center. After an unsuccessful effort to see a show for the kids at the National Theater (the free shows begin in September, it turns out), we took a most meandering path to the National Portrait Gallery, thwarted from the straight and narrow by an annual “Battle of the BBQs” which blocked the city for several blocks in all directions from Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Gallery was great. We enjoyed seeing portraits of and reading about dead presidents (we spent most of our time in the presidential gallery). Lia and I particularly enjoyed reading how wags called John Tyler “His Accidency.”
Predictably, the girls grew restless, and we tried to stave off their incipient rebellion by having them watch a little film of addresses from modern presidents, beginning with FDR. This was more interesting to me than to them. In spite of myself I got chills during the clip of President Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech.
When the girls could take no more, we sought refuge in the Gallery courtyard where we each had an ice cream. The courtyard has a few large blocks of slightly lowered ground, the surface of which is covered by a film of running water. Chari, Julia, and Eli were all drawn ineluctably to the water. Chari was rebuked by a security guard for “wading” barefoot; Julia and Eli hilariously hiked up their skirts in response to the nonexistent danger of getting them wet.
We had planned a trip to Ford’s Theater but instead came home for lunch and naps. In the evening, we all went out to dinner at the Olive Garden—an indulgence made possible by a gift card from Justin’s Institute class (really from Oliver and Elise Hahl).
This was a lot of fun. Julia was in rare form. She was effusive in her praise of this “really fancy eating place” and its “good cookers.” She protested when our waitress walked off with her untouched wine glass (“Why’s she taking my cup?!?”). She called out helpful hints to Justin as he took Eli off to the restroom for a diaper change (“Daddy!!! You have to take her to the BOYS bathroom
because you are a BOY!”). She made diplomatic observations calculated to secure the goodwill of our neighbors (“Their baby boy just keeps CRYING and CRYING and CRYING!”). And she bore the embarrassment of sartorial hardships with a philosophic fortitude—standing proudly in the aisle rather than hiding under the table (her skirt strings came undone mid-meal, and she found herself with her drawers unintentionally dropped).
It was a good meal for Julia. I didn’t do badly either. Lia smiled when she saw me coming out of the restaurant with a big bag full of carry-out boxes—three of them—with our leftovers inside them. I don’t like to throw away food that we’ve bought and I don’t like participating in an American culture of entitlement that feels it can afford to let things go to waste.
After the girls had gone to bed I read, Chari filibustered, and Lia sewed. Around 10:30 we had dessert, which consisted of two hefty slices of cheese cake—one raspberry, one chocolate—we had taken home from the Olive Garden. We sat round the table, each with a fork, and passed the slices round the triangle, taking a bite of each as they passed before us. The cheesecake was delicious and we shared some hearty laughs as we worked through them. It’s fun having Chari around.
June 6
Davy, Lia’s pest-control-peddling younger brother, turned eighteen today. When Lia called to wish him well Davy replied with self-effacing insouciance. “I’m just eighteen,” he mumbled, “it’s not a big deal.” But in his heart he knows otherwise. On Justin’s eighteenth birthday, which happened to come on the very eve of the third millennium, all around him speculated that his coming of age at such a portentous hour meant that the destiny of this and other universes would hang upon the outcome of his future career. Such musings were more prophetic than their authors knew, as the rise and progress of this incomparable blog must surely attest to all attentive minds.
In the evening we went to Brookside Gardens, otherwise known as “the geese park,” for the roasting of marshmallows and the outdoor viewing of “Horton Hears a Who.” We were late, though, so only the latter objective was achieved. This was a great sorrow to Lia, who had been craving (le mot juste) sugar—and marshmallow is nothing if not sugar in its purest form.
June 7
The unqualified highlight of the day was our spending the evening with the Sevys. This was a joyous reunion, perhaps most of all for Julia and Mayah, at least the former of whom has suffered much of late for want of a female companion her own age. Asher and Mayah had a late night yesterday, and so took a while to warm up to the evenings festivities. But warm up they did, and soon the Sevys’ comfortable apartment bubbled over with merriment and glee. Lindsay made a wonderful meal of (TK), followed and crowned by cream-soda floats.
Eli, tasting some of Justin’s float, pronounced it, “Fuzzy, fuzzy.” This assessment was, in Asher’s eyes, the very ne plus ultra of hilarity, and he spent the next twenty minutes in alternate yawps of “Fuzzy! Fuzzy!” and rolling laughter.
Predictably, Julia and Mayah (and Eli too) spent much of the evening changing clothes, donning one princess dress after another in radiant exchanges of mutual admiration. Justin interrogated Travis about the inner workings of the state department, but Travis’s discretion held firm. Lia and Lindsay sang rhapsodic paeans to the unbounded glories of their dishwashers. Asher mostly wrestled all comers to the floor.
Davy, Lia’s pest-control-peddling younger brother, turned eighteen today. When Lia called to wish him well Davy replied with self-effacing insouciance. “I’m just eighteen,” he mumbled, “it’s not a big deal.” But in his heart he knows otherwise. On Justin’s eighteenth birthday, which happened to come on the very eve of the third millennium, all around him speculated that his coming of age at such a portentous hour meant that the destiny of this and other universes would hang upon the outcome of his future career. Such musings were more prophetic than their authors knew, as the rise and progress of this incomparable blog must surely attest to all attentive minds.
In the evening we went to Brookside Gardens, otherwise known as “the geese park,” for the roasting of marshmallows and the outdoor viewing of “Horton Hears a Who.” We were late, though, so only the latter objective was achieved. This was a great sorrow to Lia, who had been craving (le mot juste) sugar—and marshmallow is nothing if not sugar in its purest form.
June 7
The unqualified highlight of the day was our spending the evening with the Sevys. This was a joyous reunion, perhaps most of all for Julia and Mayah, at least the former of whom has suffered much of late for want of a female companion her own age. Asher and Mayah had a late night yesterday, and so took a while to warm up to the evenings festivities. But warm up they did, and soon the Sevys’ comfortable apartment bubbled over with merriment and glee. Lindsay made a wonderful meal of (TK), followed and crowned by cream-soda floats.
Eli, tasting some of Justin’s float, pronounced it, “Fuzzy, fuzzy.” This assessment was, in Asher’s eyes, the very ne plus ultra of hilarity, and he spent the next twenty minutes in alternate yawps of “Fuzzy! Fuzzy!” and rolling laughter.
Predictably, Julia and Mayah (and Eli too) spent much of the evening changing clothes, donning one princess dress after another in radiant exchanges of mutual admiration. Justin interrogated Travis about the inner workings of the state department, but Travis’s discretion held firm. Lia and Lindsay sang rhapsodic paeans to the unbounded glories of their dishwashers. Asher mostly wrestled all comers to the floor.
June 10-23
Justin, thinking it would be great fun to try his hand at corporate law and gain twenty pounds eating Southern food to boot, went to Charlotte, NC for two weeks to live in a hotel, dine on restaurant fare, and otherwise live the glamorous life of a real, bachelor lawyer. This dream seemed it might find fruition when he noticed checking into his hotel a tall, well-dressed, unearthly fit black gentleman by the name of Michael Jordan. However, the trip only went downhill from there. He found the folks at the Charlotte office very pleasant even if their conversation--like that of all lawyers--proved rather dull ("Lawyers talk about three things--restaurants, bars, and sports."), and was very happy to return home.
Meanwhile, we had to call in back-up to help me with the girls, and who better than a fifteen year old sister, otherwise lazing away her summer in the sun and Virgin River skim-boarding puddles of St. George.
Chari did not appreciate pushing Julia in the stroller in DC humidity, so we had to cut back on our planned site-seeing, but we did manage a few things. Here're some highlights:
We also worked on domestication. I made some cinnamon rolls that brought in a third place and can of Ghiradelli Hot Chocolate in our ward bake-off, and we made matching skirts without patterns. Here are my three designs:
Chari's sporting one very much her own.
She's so cool she can wear anything. Eli inherited this brazen fashion sense:
June 21, 2008
Saturday. My first full day back in D.C. after two weeks in Charlotte. It is unspeakably good to be home. The girls slept in until 8:30 (so, of course, did Chari), so Lia and I got some much needed extra rest. After a special waffle breakfast—how I’ve missed Lia’s cooking!—I gave the girls baths and got them ready for a morning on the town.
We rode the Metro to Metro Center. After an unsuccessful effort to see a show for the kids at the National Theater (the free shows begin in September, it turns out), we took a most meandering path to the National Portrait Gallery, thwarted from the straight and narrow by an annual “Battle of the BBQs” which blocked the city for several blocks in all directions from Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Gallery was great. We enjoyed seeing portraits of and reading about dead presidents (we spent most of our time in the presidential gallery). Lia and I particularly enjoyed reading how wags called John Tyler “His Accidency.”Predictably, the girls grew restless, and we tried to stave off their incipient rebellion by having them watch a little film of addresses from modern presidents, beginning with FDR. This was more interesting to me than to them. In spite of myself I got chills during the clip of President Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech.
When the girls could take no more, we sought refuge in the Gallery courtyard where we each had an ice cream. The courtyard has a few large blocks of slightly lowered ground, the surface of which is covered by a film of running water. Chari, Julia, and Eli were all drawn ineluctably to the water. Chari was rebuked by a security guard for “wading” barefoot; Julia and Eli hilariously hiked up their skirts in response to the nonexistent danger of getting them wet.
We had planned a trip to Ford’s Theater but instead came home for lunch and naps. In the evening, we all went out to dinner at the Olive Garden—an indulgence made possible by a gift card from Justin’s Institute class (really from Oliver and Elise Hahl).
This was a lot of fun. Julia was in rare form. She was effusive in her praise of this “really fancy eating place” and its “good cookers.” She protested when our waitress walked off with her untouched wine glass (“Why’s she taking my cup?!?”). She called out helpful hints to Justin as he took Eli off to the restroom for a diaper change (“Daddy!!! You have to take her to the BOYS bathroom
because you are a BOY!”). She made diplomatic observations calculated to secure the goodwill of our neighbors (“Their baby boy just keeps CRYING and CRYING and CRYING!”). And she bore the embarrassment of sartorial hardships with a philosophic fortitude—standing proudly in the aisle rather than hiding under the table (her skirt strings came undone mid-meal, and she found herself with her drawers unintentionally dropped).It was a good meal for Julia. I didn’t do badly either. Lia smiled when she saw me coming out of the restaurant with a big bag full of carry-out boxes—three of them—with our leftovers inside them. I don’t like to throw away food that we’ve bought and I don’t like participating in an American culture of entitlement that feels it can afford to let things go to waste.
After the girls had gone to bed I read, Chari filibustered, and Lia sewed. Around 10:30 we had dessert, which consisted of two hefty slices of cheese cake—one raspberry, one chocolate—we had taken home from the Olive Garden. We sat round the table, each with a fork, and passed the slices round the triangle, taking a bite of each as they passed before us. The cheesecake was delicious and we shared some hearty laughs as we worked through them. It’s fun having Chari around.
June 23, 2008
Today was my first day back at work in the Washington D.C. office of Winston & Strawn. It was good to be back. The Charlotte office has much to recommend it, but, all in all, I prefer D.C. I finished “mining” my Innocence Project file and set to work on another pro bono assignment, this one in connection with the Constitutional Sources project. My assignment is to cull together an engaging narrative of the birth and antecedents of the Import-Export Clause of the Constitution. The work is of an academic nature, and I felt at home and happy doing it.
After work I took the Metro home as usual but was caught in a torrential downpour on the way from the Silver Spring Metro stop to our apartment. Similar caught, as it happened, were Lia and the girls. They were on their way back from dropping Chari off at the airport when it started to rain in earnest. Julia, frightened by the tempest’s fury, refused to go one step farther, and my beloved trio took refuge under a tree. They were still waiting under the tree when I was on my own way home—head down, soaked to the bone, and very happy.
The sight of me banished Julia’s fears. She smiled joyfully and ran to me with open arms. I scooped her up in a big hug. Eli, still strapped into her stroller, cooed merrily as well. With the family reunited, all were prepared to brave the storm together. This we did, marching home to the rattle of the rain and that tattle of Julia’s intrepid tongue.
We had the missionaries over for dinner. They were, to put it mildly, something less than exuberant. One elder, from Southern California but manifestly not of Southern California, said very little. The other, from Brigham City, said nothing. We passed together a quiet, awkward hour, during which most of our interrogatives were answered by monosyllables. When Lia tried to engage the elder from Brigham City he informed us, after considerable if inexplicable hesitation, that he has four brothers and a sister; that the sister is married but as of yet has no children; that she is due to have her first child in January, which means, he supposed, that she is pregnant but not quite yet “expecting.” This last was an odd challenge to one of the world’s best-established synonyms.
The elders ate Lia’s painstakingly crafted meal without comment and, apparently, without relish. As they walked out the door one of them deigned to remark that the home-made frozen yogurt we served for dessert was “really good.” Nice boys, both of them, but we will perhaps be forgiven if we do not race to have them teach our friends.
After the missionaries left we played a family game of “Chutes & Ladders,” the crowning success of which was our preventing Eli from destroying the all-important wheel. We then put the girls to bed and enjoyed a quiet night of doing dishes, folding laundry, and reading Plutarch (Lia) and Persuasion (me).
Today was my first day back at work in the Washington D.C. office of Winston & Strawn. It was good to be back. The Charlotte office has much to recommend it, but, all in all, I prefer D.C. I finished “mining” my Innocence Project file and set to work on another pro bono assignment, this one in connection with the Constitutional Sources project. My assignment is to cull together an engaging narrative of the birth and antecedents of the Import-Export Clause of the Constitution. The work is of an academic nature, and I felt at home and happy doing it.
After work I took the Metro home as usual but was caught in a torrential downpour on the way from the Silver Spring Metro stop to our apartment. Similar caught, as it happened, were Lia and the girls. They were on their way back from dropping Chari off at the airport when it started to rain in earnest. Julia, frightened by the tempest’s fury, refused to go one step farther, and my beloved trio took refuge under a tree. They were still waiting under the tree when I was on my own way home—head down, soaked to the bone, and very happy.
The sight of me banished Julia’s fears. She smiled joyfully and ran to me with open arms. I scooped her up in a big hug. Eli, still strapped into her stroller, cooed merrily as well. With the family reunited, all were prepared to brave the storm together. This we did, marching home to the rattle of the rain and that tattle of Julia’s intrepid tongue.We had the missionaries over for dinner. They were, to put it mildly, something less than exuberant. One elder, from Southern California but manifestly not of Southern California, said very little. The other, from Brigham City, said nothing. We passed together a quiet, awkward hour, during which most of our interrogatives were answered by monosyllables. When Lia tried to engage the elder from Brigham City he informed us, after considerable if inexplicable hesitation, that he has four brothers and a sister; that the sister is married but as of yet has no children; that she is due to have her first child in January, which means, he supposed, that she is pregnant but not quite yet “expecting.” This last was an odd challenge to one of the world’s best-established synonyms.
The elders ate Lia’s painstakingly crafted meal without comment and, apparently, without relish. As they walked out the door one of them deigned to remark that the home-made frozen yogurt we served for dessert was “really good.” Nice boys, both of them, but we will perhaps be forgiven if we do not race to have them teach our friends.
After the missionaries left we played a family game of “Chutes & Ladders,” the crowning success of which was our preventing Eli from destroying the all-important wheel. We then put the girls to bed and enjoyed a quiet night of doing dishes, folding laundry, and reading Plutarch (Lia) and Persuasion (me).
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1 comments:
I can't help but wonder if your reluctance to waste food is not just a protest against Western entitlement, but an inheritance from your mother, whose Larsen genes won't let her waste anything!
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