Today is a spectacular winter day. The wind is still, the sky pale blue and the greens are celebrating the sunshine. It feels strange today to have Desmond and Jordan home from school and Lil in school. Des had a teacher conference this noon and that is why mid week we have extra daytime residents. Desmond's teacher who is affectionately called Mrs. Parks, says he is stepping upwards on the ladder of learning. She speculates that our six moves in three years and particularly his last school in the slums (excuse me) have caused a below level standing that is finally shrinking. He gets above average in Math, enthusiasm, and focus. He's catching up on reading and writing. This is apparent with his growing interest in his chapter book about a goblin. He can hardly hold back and is creating multiple chapters a day.
Desmond finally tried on the elegant silk long johns I ordered for him. Lillian has been reveling in her glistening white ones for weeks but Desmond only just discovered the weightless warmth of his jet black ones. Now he wears them under his clothes. Ive been on a silk kick. I realize that this is not a vegetarian fibre. Hopefully Desmond wont figure that out. He has fierce vegetarian opinions and has had big noisy conflicts at school after someone wanted to kill a cabbage moth, which Desmond termed a butterfly, and deserving of it's life.
Desmond, a Libra, sure does want things to be fair and even. He takes it upon himself to reprimand any of us who have stepped on another's toes. Des says new bigger boy phrases like his "Mean Lego plane" and "cool as". Lillian has a wider vocabulary, though and entertains me to no end with her tales of meteorites and renditions of her favorite songs with her own, often hilarious, lyric alterations. The kids read about 25-30 library books a week. We don't have television reception and I cant bring myself to spend the money (but really it's the time I don't want spent)on satellite TV.
We have swimming lessons tonight and we are going to head home for some burritos instead of our usual dining out Friday. We head out on a trip next week and we're trying to save some money for that. Our first stop heading south wil be the hot springs that Jordan found where two rivers come together, one hot, one cold. We will then be heading down to Te Haro on the southern west coast of the North island (did you get that?) We will be picking up a Borgward there. If you dont know what a Borgward is then click Ours is a white sedan just like on the Wikipedia page. If you think they are impracticle, I dont want to hear it. This will be my sixth one and I just love them. They are a good daily driver, I promise. They used pretty good materials in the sixties in Germany. Anyone who has had an unusual car knows that it's fun. It causes all kinds of conversations, not to mention the steadfast fellowship with other owners. We pay something like 400 a month in fuel for our cars and the Borgward gets much better mileage than either of our existing cars. After the aquisition of the car, a spare engine (just in case) some bumpers and other stuff that comes with it we'll have an urban episode in Wellington for a few days with trips to the Te Papa national museum and reminisce about the times we enjoyed with Nina in that hip and colorful city. Hopefully they'll put us in the garden cottage at the Beethoven house where we'll stay. It's a quirky hostel we found a few years ago. Then we go to Toro on the East side of the north island and have a few days with our friends the Hunters who I met while on a writing class retreat a while back. While we are down that way we'll stop in and see Ollie, who is bachin it without Addie (she's in the US) and we'll look at the handiwork that Gary Miller contributed to their home- new French doors. Ollie and Addie live on acreage that has Ollie's vineyard growing. We have visited them routinely over the three years we've been here and always inspiring to see the progress they have made turning a barn into a living space. There is usually beer brewing and onions drying and darn good food and wine. They have a lovely carmel colored dog named Argo, part Ridgeback and part Mastiff. He's very good natured.
Then we will head home in two vehicles and probably stop back at the hot springs just to warm our wintery toes up.
