I was up first for once, just before 7. August and Carly were p about 7:20. I was getting to head to Jerusalem and meet with Omar at Sabeel about possibly doing some English writing and editing for them.
While I was gone Carly gave August a bath and washed his hair. He finished his lollipop, which Carly realized is a good treat for him since it lasts so long. They walked up to town, stopping at the park on the right to eat a granola bar with chocolate in it. They went to the post office and had the longest wait ever, like 25 minutes, but August did great. They then walked to Gatule, the cafe, and had a smoothie with strawberry, mango, and mango peach. They then stopped at the park by our house and played store, using the ship area as the store. He also made a big pile of books from the shelves at some point.
Meanwhile, the drive to Jerusalem went smoothly. The only hiccup was at the very end when Apple Maps wanted me to turn left at an intersection I couldn’t turn left. But it routed me around just fine. Parking was also easy and I parked on the back road just up the block from Sabeel, about 9:50. Just after I got out of the car and started walking south, I heard “Ryan!” Very strange to hear my name called when I was in a new place where I didn’t know anyone.
It was Omar, and he had seen me looking down at my phone. He gave me a ride the last half block to Sabeel and we headed up. The office was closed today, so cold at first. He made us coffee and we sat and started talking. We had a long meeting, basically 3 and a half hours. For awhile I was looking at a couple of text to show him what sort of feedback and editing I would provide. So nothing for sure yet, but I might do some paid editing, writing, and document development work for them.
I headed home at 1:30. My route home took me up 50, 45, 443, and 444. An interesting drive, as I got to see more of the walls, terraced hills, etc. All went smooth until the last 20 kilometers. Apple Maps wanted me to turn onto 4 where I couldn’t turn. It then only wanted to make things worse, wanting me to turn left again where I couldn’t, so I switched to Waze to get me back on 4.
So I got home a little before 3:30, about 20 minutes late because of that. They were outside in the yard, surrounded by a bunch of books. Back inside, on the couch August noticed I was dressed differently and wasn’t fond of my new look, and helped me take off my shoes and socks and tie and told me to go change. He was then spinning with my tie. I told Carly about my meeting and mentioned something about activities for people who are 80. August asked “I can do something when I’m 80?” We had pita and hummus, and August was stilling “just bread”. Carly was aiding and abetting as she totally just handed him bread and didn’t make him dip it in hummus. He thought that was quite funny.
I went up and changed. When I came back down they were were experimenting with water and measuring milliliters. I took him out for a walk at 4:10.
We first stopped at our park. He turned the bouncing seesaw into a contest thing: “If we bounce 19 more times I get a sink!” Then, playing store he bought a chimney for his web. These join the things like fire extinguishers and emergency exits that he bought for his web the other day. Over on the round swing he said”Mama was in charge of swinging the web. But you don’t have to.” And “This is spider day.”
He wanted to do more climbing, so he did some climbing on the things in our park, but they are more for older kids. So we talked about going to another park: “The one we goed to to have those chocolate bars. That was before the post office.” That’s the park on the right as we walk up into town. We walked up there and got there at 4:45.
Spent most of the time on different parts of the rope climbing structure. He was a spider, and one part of it was his bed, another was his living room: “I’m stuck in my living room.” He decided to turn the green hanging chair into his bedroom, so said “I used this chemical in my hands to turn things into my bed.”
He then went across the the play structure and had a store. He made me a sandwich, and announced that he had new smoothie flavors. As he was making me a smoothie a dog, luckily a nice one who had been wandering around the park, surprised him by coming in the small area he was in.
From there we went to the spinning thing and were planets spinning around the sun, the played on the Jeep thing – the battery thing was turned to a low setting and he said someone else had been using it. A ride on the motorbike, then playing on snakes and ladders, then back to the climbing stuff.
We left at 5:30. At home we had seitan and beet greens and french fries and rice for dinner. Carly left for a walk. He and I did some Marco Polo Arctic and got one card in Classify It, then moved to the couch and read a lot of The Sisters. Carly came home and headed up to a shower. He and I read some more of The Sisters, then Pete the Cat Saves Christmas. Carly took him up and got him ready for bed. I came up to say good night and he was being a kitten so I told him to dream about kitten-y things. He said “And a tornado! And bad dreams!” He gave Carly a funny chuckle after that. I left them just before 8 and he was pretty straight to sleep.
Before I left for Jerusalem:
At the park:
