Your Opinion Matters*

Tai's kangaroo costume from last year still fits, sort of. Sure, the sleeves ride up his arms and the elastic wristbands leave red marks on his forearms. But it still mostly fits. And it's damn cute.

But we were also just given a hand-me-down lion costume which fits better (and will quite possibly still fit next year). Our problem is trying to decide which he should wear this Friday to go trick-or-treating. I've posted photos (my apologies for the quality -- he doesn't exactly stand still, ever) for your viewing enjoyment and also so that you may answer the question below.

Kangaroo

Lion

Please indicate which of the answer choices below best describes your preference:






*Actually, we are not obligated to follow through on the results of this poll, We'll probably do whatever the hell we want. But this was a fun way to post pictures of Tai in two cute costumes.

Brunching All Over The Valley

When a member of your family wakes at 6am (even on weekends) and naps right after lunch, weekend brunches are clearly the best way to get together with friends. Case in point, this weekend we are heading to two such brunches. And looking forward to both, very much.

In both cases, Tai should be in a very good mood because (1) it's his favorite time of day (2) there will be food and (3) there will be other kids to play with. In both cases, Minh and I will be happy because of the Tai's good mood, the yummy food (that we don't have to cook!) and good company.

We missed the whole damn thing.

Friday afternoon we left work early to head to a 5pm wedding in Boylston, MA (which, according to Google Maps is 1 hour and 15 minutes from our house). We left at 3:30pm. Maybe cutting it a tad close. But Google Maps always calculates things as if you were driving the speed limit, so I figured we'd be fine. But instead of zipping down the pike at 75 mph, or even 65 mph, we inched across the state at an infuriating 12 mph, for many many many miles.

At 4:40 our friends, who had already arrived in Boylston, called and asked "Where are you guys?" "Stuck on the pike, of course, " was my reply.

At 4:50 I realized we were going to miss the beginning of the ceremony. "Oh, how embarrassing," I thought, "What if the bride sees us come in half-way through?"

At 5:05, a good 10 miles from the exit and still barely moving, I realized we were going to miss the whole thing.

When we arrived (at very nearly 6pm) they were packing up the folding chairs, the bride and groom were taking photos, and the guest were already enjoying cocktail hour. We snuck in and tried to play it off, but everyone knew we'd just arrived.

Sorry Kristen.

Not Exactly the Same...

Well, I missed Mel. Entirely. He has come and gone and I didn't get "discovered" and cast in his movie, nor did I glimpse him filming in downtown Noho from afar. No, I was home those two days taking care of a sick toddler and napping while he napped. Woe is me.

But today I did see a celebrity of a different sort. As I sat and stared at the numbers on my computer screen with glazy eyes, John Kerry was directly underneath me, on the second floor of my building. I glimpsed the back of his head as he was leaving, just as I headed downstairs to use the bathroom.

Just think, if I had decided to go pee a mere 30 seconds sooner, I could have bumped right into him in the hallway. That would have been something.

Mel's in town.

It's Friday, I didn't feel like packing lunch this morning, and I have been craving a burrito for a solid 24 hours. So Minh and I decided* to walk into downtown Northampton for lunch at my favorite burrito spot.

Coincidentally, Mel Gibson is in the area this week, filming Edge of Darkness. (They actually had an open casting call for extras in August, but since they were not seeking adorable half-Asian toddlers, we didn't attend.)

Say what you will about Mel and his movies, but I think it's pretty cool to have him filming right near home. The movie crew has set up camp at Atkins in Amherst (with lots of trailers inside of which I assume are real, live actors) and will also be filming next week in good old Sunderland, home of Frontier Pizza. And next Tuesday they are shutting down part of Main Street in Noho to film Mel exiting the courthouse and driving down the street. I may just have to get accidentally stuck in the craziness on my way to work that day, and need to pull over and watch the filming for a while.

And on the way to lunch today we saw a very fancy, dark-windowed bus drive by that most certainly contained Mel himself. Then we walked by a stalky man, lingering on a street corner, clad in all black with loads of camera equipment on his person and at his feet. Minh assured me that this man was paparazzi. There were also six more of these camera-clad folks ordering themselves burritos for lunch.

In addition, today must have been some sort of school holiday or half-day because the burrito place was overrun with middle-schoolers. They were everywhere--in line, at the counter, seated in booths. Some of them were pooling their money with friends to be able to split a burrito and a side of chips.

So what this all means is that, in a crowded downtown restaurant, Minh and I were the only ones over the age of 11 who didn't have cameras slung around our necks.







*Actually, I talked him into it. he's not a big fan of burritos. But he's a big fan of me, so he agreed.