Friday: I don't remember much of the first part of the day, but I do remember going to Cloud City for some coffee and studying, which was way overdue. That evening, I came back and vacuumed the ground floor, and helped the boys through dinner (including implementing the new "you don't leave the table until your area is cleaned up" rule).
Saturday: wKnitter got up and did breakfast with the boys, and then drove herself and her partner to the Etsy show, while I pretty much entertained the kids and got them ready for the day. When she got back here (9:30 or so), we loaded up the boys and drove her back. This allowed me to have the car for the day and her to be there for (almost) the opening bell.
After the boys and I did the show (I was happy to discover that they were selling beer at the concession stand), we went to the Children's Museum, where the boys ran around in more-or-less self-directed play and I tried to keep from pushing the etsy show to every parent with a toddler. miniBot was a big boy about using the restroom there, and after a little lunch, we decided that it was time to go home. Gnat fell asleep on the way, and when we got back, miniBot took some quiet time while I ate my lunch (I hadn't had much at the center).
When the boys woke up, we loaded up and went over to Kids Cuts on Roosevelt to trim the shaggy head of miniBot. miniBot wasn't very excited about the idea, but he more-or-less let the haircut happen, and I took the after-haircut lull to do the following: 1) Get batteries for wKnitter's Fuze necklace, 2) Taste the flavor of the day at Peak's (raspberry Theo chocolate OM NOM NOM), 3) Pick up stuff for dinner- some sodas, a bag of salad, and a mini-tub of cheap chocolate ice cream.
I ended up having to pick up wKnitter from the show (which I'd forgotten was my job), so me and the boys loaded up in the car and did so. miniBot helped me make a pizza (I rolled out the dough, spread the sauce, and spread the cheese, he did the pepperoni), I prepared the salad (rinse, dump), and put some pumpkin cookies in the oven halfway through dinner, so we really had a pretty great meal. Why don't people do home-baked pizza more often?
Sunday: Again, wKnitter did breakfast with the boys. I drove the whole party (both boys, both women) to the show, and at my suggestion we decided to do drive through coffee on the way. Bummer was that Tin Cup coffee (home of the "Ride the S.L.U.Trolley" shirts) isn't open on Sundays, so coffee was at McCafe. miniBot wanted to stay and see the science museum, but I was a little worn out and they didn't open for an hour, so we came home and called
oldmangrumpus.
Brunch was at Whole Foods, where miniBot got his first lesson in "If the thing you buy doesn't work, you can take it back." In this case, the thing we bought was a set of three pancakes, one of which couldn't be cut, sliced, or even penetrated by the cornware (might have been potatoware) utensils that were available. I was very polite about the whole thing, and the staff was quite responsive to my suggestions, calling up the chef after giving us a full refund.
The four of us then made a trip to Silver Platters, where my quest for Toshinori Kondo CDs was a failure, but we picked up They Might Be Giant's
Here Comes Science album and the new Mike Doughty CD for dinner listening. There was also a brief trip to the library at Northgate, where we returned some stuff, and I picked up some comic books (hey look, "Ultimate Crisis!") before heading home.
Gnat napped while miniBot and I played Lego Star Wars, picking up the last minikits for the Battle of Endor (guess what? I seem to like these Ewoks and I'm not sure why), and getting about half of them from Episode IV's "Rescue the Princess," which may require using a minikit guide to figure those out.
That afternoon, I left the boys across the street while I drove back to pick up the ladies, and dinner was a refreshing bowl of Mac n' Cheese accompanied with beer. After the boys went to sleep, I read the entire Infinite Crisis thing, and I'll probably read it again- they were overreaching a little bit, but the story isn't bad, and it probably has my all-time favorite Joker moment (note to fictional self: If building a coalition of supervillans, don't piss off the Joker by inviting everyone else).
Today: So far, I've written up my BUS119 and BUS236 papers for the week (the cross-cultural analysis of Thailand and Australia was fun), and pointed someone to
the totally awesome story of two crazy brothers building a supercomputer to analyze a tapestry of a unicorn in response to a picture of a painting of two unicorns playing poker. Yeah, I'm cool.
This afternoon: Taking the boys to U Village to return some crappy LED flashlights (using the on/off buttons seems to break the battery housing) and find a couple of better ones somewhere.