productive silence.

The next few months are something of a crunch time for me deadline-wise, so this space may be less full than usual. I will still post when I can.

In search of my Invincible summer.

We are deep enough into winter that I cannot quite think my way out again. The holidays are over and spring feels very far indeed. This season of hibernation has decreased the size of our apartment. Snusförnuftig (the Swedish word meaning that there is no bad weather, only bad gear) makes a lovely sentiment (or even lifestyle), but surely even the Swedes feel the mid-winter blues.

I met a friend from college who now works at the Pentagon for drinks last night; we met at the Tabard Inn, where they were serving mulled cider and the dark leather decor warmed by eclectic lamps matched the needs of the season quite perfectly. I will not say that I found my invincible summer in that moment sipping spiced cider on a sunken couch, but the winter coziness of the Inn turned out to be the right gear for the weather. I left feeling lifted up, not by the promise of winter's end, but by the enjoyment a truly wintry moment.

Sometime in the middle of the night...

Sometime in the middle of the night...
Originally uploaded by jmss.

or very early morning, while the rest of us were sleeping, Soren climbed up on a stool and took down our new scrabble board, opened the plastic and set up his board. It was waiting for us when we awoke.

Knight coloring pages.

Very belatedly, after reading about Leila's unicorn, I realized that one can find and print just about any coloring page from the internet. Voila, the knight series.

Trash to Treasure

The owners of the house that we rented in La Pointe had left behind some of their children's toys and books for our children to use. Soren took a particular shine to a Sesame Street book about recycling starring Oscar the Grouch. The chorus of this story was: trash to treasure; it's the grouch way.

On New Year's Day Peter stepped out while the children napped; he returned with an enormous bouquet of red and silvery-white balloons orphaned by our passage into the new year. He left the bouquet in our entryway for the children to discover when they woke. A friend was over at the time and he refused to disclose to either of us from where he had rescued these balloons until the children had already discovered and embraced them.

The dumpster across the street Peter admitted once we were playing Up up up and weaving in and out of the streamers. He'd thought I would object if he told me before they were already in play. Hearing this Soren said: It's the grouch way!

Neighbor.

We live in a large hi-rise right downtown. Aside from my colleague who lives on the same floor, but on the opposite end of the building, I do not really know our neighbors. I have had occasion to feel slightly sorry for the woman who occupies the apartment adjacent to ours, whenever I hear some activity emanating from there, which is not too often. I believe that she lives alone, but dogs and children make frequent enough visits that I think she must really not enjoy having us as neighbors. Although we rarely hear anything from the people above us, and thus feel reasonably confident that our neighbor below, who is also a colleague, does not hear anything from us, I always know when our next-door neighbor has a guest. And so our neighbor must always know when we are home, or the children woke up early, or that one of us has lost our patience. I hope that she has quality headphones.

The click of the door signaled that one of the children had exited the apartment. A second click followed. A quick survey of the other rooms confirmed that both were out in the hallway. I opened the door to see two little heads peering back down the hallway from around the corner. I did not have time to get upset; they saw me and came scampering back.

We left a cookie for the neighbor and then we hid to see her find it.

I did not realize immediately that the neighbor in question was actually the person right next door, who apparently was working late or otherwise occupied because despite what I am sure were repeated rings of her doorbell, the cookie sat before the door, undiscovered.

You might want to put something under the cookie. People do not really like a cookie straight from the carpet.

After installing the cookie on a piece of available construction paper and ringing the doorbell one fruitless time more, we came inside and Soren wrote the neighbor a note to go with the cookie that we place next to the cookie. It said:

Neigh
bor

Soren

Later that evening Papa came back from an errand and confirmed that our neighbor had indeed collected this prize. Perhaps it will offset the early noises. Those oatmeal-cranberry were damn good.

UPDATE: Our neighbor left a package of Orville Reddenbacker for Soren with a small note thanking him for the cookie!

Ladybird.