Tuesday, June 30: NH: A Bottle of Beer
It was another delightful day in NH. Greta worked on geometry, and we went to the library in Plainfield because she needed to print out a worksheet. Andrew had a full workday, sadly, but he has the rest of the week off. Lucia and I spent most of the day reading in our hammocks. After geometry, Greta and Lucia swam in the pond. Andrew, Lucia, and Greta went for a run in the late afternoon.
By the time they got back, it was raining, so we decided to run some errands so we could fully enjoy a nicer day tomorrow without having to leave the house. We made our first visit to Books-A-Million, the girls creating huge stacks of books from which they then made their selections; and I bought a book for myself, since I've already read two of the four books I brought with me. I bought hay for Nutmeg at the exotic pet store, and Andrew picked up a birthday gift for Farrah at TJ Maxx. We bought random things at Walmart.
We had dinner at the Weathervane, causing a small domestic scene as each of the kids ordered the "Boatload of Value" special which just became so funny to me that I could barely get my order out because I was laughing too hard to say "Boatload of Value" myself. It is difficult to communicate the polite but barely-concealed scorn with which they said "boatload of value"; they had spent the previous five minutes somehow mispronouncing the included "soft drink," emphasizing both words equally as though they'd never seen or heard the phrase before.
We had to go to the Price Chopper after dinner to finish off our errands, and it just took too long, and by that point I just wanted to be back home. Impatient as I scanned the groceries in the self-checkout, I foolishly turned Andrew's six-pack of beer over to find the bar code, and one of the beers slid out and shattered on the floor. I was lucky that all six didn't fall out. The kids were beyond mortified and said they're never grocery shopping with me again. We slunk out of the store.
In the car, I said that yes, shattering the beer on the floor was my fault, absolutely, but wasn't it also somehow Andrew's fault, for taking too long in the store selecting the beer when he knew it was well past the time I should have been back home, reading? No one agreed. We spent the rest of the drive naming all the things that could, when dropped in a grocery store, make a bigger mess than a single beer, landing on a bottle of olive oil and a five-pound bag of flour as the messiest options.
Good family fun. It is a little coccoon of famiy time here, and even these chaotic moments seem to be supercharged somehow as core memories--tiny moments, these long isolated days, separated from real life, protected from it. There is so much laughter. I am so glad we are here.
What We're Reading
Margo: The Bright Years - Sarah Damoff
Andrew: Thirteen Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World's Largest Art Heist - Geoffrey Kelly
Lucia: She's now working on three books at once: The Catcher in the Rye; A Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Moss; and one she just bought tonight, The Ascended by Bree Grenwich & Parker Lennox (not sure of the literary value of this one but I'm not sixteen)
Greta: The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
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