We left here in our zipcar at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, and from the looks of I-90 across MA, I thought we would miss dinner (at 6 p.m.) It's usually a 2.5 hour drive, give or take. But after 2 hours of driving anywhere from zero to 40, I thought we'd never arrive. Fortunately, once we made it to the I-84 interchange, traffic eased, and we zipped on down to Connecticut. We arrived at 1 p.m.

All in all, the holiday was fine. Now that I exist in a world of buzzwords, these descriptors take on more meaning. It was not a great holiday, nor a cozy holiday, nor an excellent holiday. Honestly, it didn't even make good or very good. It was fine. And no - I did not and will not post a list of things I'm thankful for. Perhaps if the holiday made it to at least "good" that would have been a possibility. But I was not in the mood.

My dad was distant and slightly grouchy, my mom was working, and didn't arrive home until 20 minutes before dinner was on the table, and then was overtired. My brother and his new wife showed up 20 minutes after dinner was served and then "her work called because she was on call," and they left 20 minutes later. No kidding. The minute they put their forks down, the phone rang, and they had to go.

Enough on that. Because my bitterness in this direction is threatening to consume me.

Friday was nice enough. Mom was home - dad was at work. We lazied about until noon, and then beloved and i parted ways from mom and her grandkids. They went to see Chicken Little, and we went and got some burgers, and then decided to venture onto IKEA for lightbulbs and hangers and batteries. Of course, we also threw in a colander, and some magnetic knife-hangers, and some new sheets for the girls' beds, and ..... oh! some dish cleaning scrubbies. I love brushes with which to clean dishes.

We left there yesterday at 6:30 p.m. The girls played "Verbal Scrabble" for the first hour of the drive, which was entertaining, and so attractive, that made them twice take a time out while my Beloved and I took a turn at a round. The girls had gotten so adept at coming up with any word in the world, that we made it be "Creature Scrabble." My Beloved invented this game the last time we drove home in the dark (and therefore, the kids would not read - and because we are unwilling to bring a portable DVD player on a 2.5 hour drive - or really, on any drive thus far). One person thinks of a word, then the next person thinks of a word that starts with any of the letters in the previous word. it does have to START with the letter of another word. After the first word, the first letter of any word cannot be used, because that would be double-use of that letter. So Thing One got clever pretty early, and started doing words like "to" and "is" and "it" - forcing her sister to come up with a word from only one letter. But this time, the rules (as stated by the offending Thing One) included a three-letter minimum.

Since it was too easy, we made it Creature Scrabble - they could only use the names of a living creature. They were using the word "ant" constantly, and it was annoying. Especially because there are a surprisingly small numbers of creatures that start with the letter "n" - and a limited number that start with "t."

But it was fun. Beloved and I took our turns, and threw out some new ideas -- such as Newt, Nightcrawler, Aardvark, Goat, Oscelot, and others that the girls hadn't wrapped their minds around yet.

We got home before 9:30, and it was good to be here. I had to go return our zipcar, which was not as fun - especially since we made the reservation after most of the boston metro area, and it was a good hike away - I had to take the T home, but enjoyed listening to last week's podcast of On The Media. It is approximately 50 minutes, and during school, I don't have time to listen to such treasures.

Today has been nice, too. We again were lazy butts, and then finally showered and headed out for a library trip. I love our town library. It is amazing. It is huge, and beautiful. It turns out it's relatively new, it was redone right before we moved here. They have a very well developed children's room, which is as big as the branch library we used to frequent in Berkeley. It has everything you ever could want, and if they don't - there's a 20 library network which you can request books from. And music. And DVD's. I checked out the first season of Gilligan's Island today, and will be corrupting my daughters in about 49 minutes. Last spring, I shared Brady Bunch with them. They loved it. He he he.

I love my kids in libraries. They could (and do) stay for hours. They read some shorter books there, they read magazines, they check out books, they add to their "things to read in the future" lists. Thing Two disappears when she's reading. She glazes over, and hears NOTHING. She was reading BFG by Roald Dahl today, and I said, "oh, Thing Two, would you like to keep reading here, or would you like to go home?" She looked up, worked to focus her eyes, and said, "Yes, I like this book," and went back.

The only sadness of the library was that they have not put a new Utne on the shelves for MONTHS. I was afraid that they discontinued the subscription. The Nation gets shelved as soon as the new week is there ... why is a monthly taking over 6 weeks??? Harumpf. I can't wait until I graduate, so I can subscribe to all these magazines that I love.

I eventually, however, did pry the four of us away from the library. We then went to a bookstore, where we picked some books for my soon-to-be-5-year-old nephew. We were looking for old favorites, but ended up with a mixture of new finds and old favorites. One, called Tuesday, is a beautifully illustrated picture book .... with no words. At first I wrinkled my face at the lack of words, thinking it may be hard for a 5 year old to wrap his mind around such a concept, but the illustrations were so fun and so beautiful, I could not resist.

Now we're home, readying to watch Gilligan. my beloved and i realized that we do not remember ever seeing the pilot, so we're looking forward to seeing the ship crash.

posted by Zuska @ 4:54 PM

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