Akiva takes his scooter down to the skate park.
He hops over the jumps
and off the jumps
and on the rails.
Then, without the scooter, across the playground
and up the slide.
Iris and Brook go down the slide.
After a brief lecture on how to walk the x-wave,
Brook goes up,
across,
and down.
All together now! Up,
across,
across,
across,
across,
get down!
Now that we have eclipse glasses, we can wear them any time we like.
For example, some people find them good to wear while playing board games after dinner.
Some people disagree about the utility of eclipse glasses for after-dinner games.
Able to see what she is doing, Iris contemplates her final tile
and wins the game.
Ari came to visit for the eclipse.
We had some time to pass before the earth and moon were in their proper places
relative to the sun.
Ari brought a filter that she’d bought for her camera. She set it all up on a tripod.
I gave her an old black shirt to use as a photographer’s cloth.
As she photographed the sun, I photographed my family.
Ari says she didn’t get any good photographs. Neither did I. Nor did I try very hard.
Ari tried exactly as hard as a $15 filter can try.
Fortunately, there are squillions of people out there with better cameras and fancier filters than we have
who got decent photos of the hole in the sun.
There are at least an equal number of people out there who turned on the AI to paint some donut-sun photos.
This photo was taken at 100% coverage without a filter and (unfortunately) without the tripod.
We have no neighbors living in the new house behind ours yet, so Akiva practices batting in the back yard.
Iris brings the cat out for an airing.
The children sit at the table working on math.
These two photographs make it look more simple and peaceful than it ever is.
Akiva remembered the time I bricked up the doorway.
That was back when the current master bedroom was still the playroom.
The children could come and go as they pleased, but for me it was a squeeze.
“I want to do it again,” he said.
“But we have to have a bigger door,” I replied.
We made the door bigger, but still it was not big enough.
I prefer adult-sized doors.
The wall came down later in the day.
I suggested Mom make a cheesecake for Cate’s 57th birthday. Cate used to ask for cheesecake on her birthday. I remember this mostly because one year, for some reason, it didn’t get cooked enough. This made the cheesecake mushy in the center, which wasn’t the end of the world to me. I didn’t know much about cheesecake. However, I remember Mom’s disappointment. She was so disappointed in herself! I do that to myself, too. Then my children tell me, “Mama, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
Unlike the cheesecake of the distant past, the cheesecake of 2024 was perfect.
Here, Mom mixes the perfect cheesecake batter.
Dad keeps her company to the best of his ability.
We called Cate on the phone and ate half the cake on the 9th, as we had to leave on the 10th.
(We ate the rest, just the four of us, in the car the next day, and while the cheesecake was definitely better, it was a bit much.)
For spring break, we visit my parents in Syracuse. It is a good time to visit, as it is about half a year away from a summer visit. It is better than midwinter, as there is less chance of a snow storm while I drive. Between our visits to Syracuse, my family can visit us in Quebec. Then we can see each other four times per year, which might not actually be enough, but traveling is not easy.
Iris and Mom pick fix up a Kenmore for a friend of mine.
