Saturday, August 24: Old City Jerusalem and Bloomfield Science Center

Carly got him up at 8. He watched a Bright Side video on what would happen if all the volcanoes erupted at once, and then a Julius Jr. episode. He had oatmeal and some zucchini bread. He told me “I discovered something called a super star…a trillion neutrons of gasses.”

We were driving at 9:30. He buckled himself as we got in. He was quiet for several minutes as we drove. Then told me “On my planet, time is backwards…if you wanted to go the shortest route it would be the longest route.” We stopped at one gas station but it was closed, then found a second along the way. He went in with Carly to go to the bathroom. He used his binoculars a lot, especially as we got into Jerusalem. We didn’t do any reading or iPad on the drive.

We parked at the open parking lot by Jaffa gate and walked in. August commented on how dirty the bricks are. He also asked if we had walked up that staircase before, and when I said yes he talked about how we had walked on those same bricks in the past. We also contemplated how thousands of others had done so as well.

We found the door to the Wujoud Museum, where I was to interview Nora Kort at 11:30. We then took a right and walked up a back pathway we’d never been on before, going up to the top for a minute. August spotted a butterfly and tried to catch it.

We then headed back, to a coffee shop over by the Tower of David, at the Christ Church Guest House. It was close to 11:30, so I stopped at the museum and they went on and found it. I was buzzed up. Nora wasn’t there yet. I looked around, and went up on the roof. Quite a view of Jerusalem, with the domes in the distance, and the empty pool (emptied by Israel in 1967 and empty since) next to it. I went back up on the roof to hear the church bells at noon.

Nora showed up and met with an older Palestinian man first. when her assistant brought out Arabic coffee and biscuits, they invited me and and the three of us chatted for about 20 minutes. He then left, and I started my interview, talking about women in leadership/peacebuilding. Very Palestinian approach, as I was there to get a specific story, but it took us about an hour to get to the piano stor. In fact, August and Carly showed up before that, and hung out in one of the rooms, playing I Spy. Luckily, it was a lovely place, with good AC, and plenty of interesting stuff for I Spy. She finally told the story of her mother’s piano, which was much more convoluted/complex, and rather less dramatic than the way Omar had told it. near the end she introduced me to a woman who had just lost her house to a home demolition two weeks ago over in Silwan.

I took August and Carly up and showed them the view from the roof and explained the history of the pool.

We then walked back to the car and I drove us to the science center. I backed in parked, as August had requested I start doing, and we went in. There were new exhibits on da Vinci and simple machines. And the maker space was open, but only had an hourly class thing in it.

He played with the thing that blows a ball up in the air, and experimented using Carly’s sweatshirt and his hat. I then went and got a sandwich and ate as I was starving. They had had pizza while at the coffee shop. I found them and switched with Carly. They had walked through the ‘Will robots love?’ doorway several times to up the counter, then ended up playing with the dancing paper clips, which is where I found them.

He and I saw a musical sculpture thing that was new, then ended up in the new simple machines area. He slid blocks down boards and spent quite a bit of time turning the screw thing to lift balls (instead of water). I told him about Sisyphus. We went over to the new brain exhibit. Then to the spinning things, then over to the spinning conveyor belt. You put wooden cars on it and they were launched on two surfaces, with different materials, and you would see how the friction was different on them and the cars would go further on one side than the other. He played with the nuts on bolts with different threads.

We then went up to the top part, where he wanted me to make one of the paper helicopter things. I did that, and it worked quite well. Then August started finding used paper airplanes and shooting them out of the paper airplane launcher. He could do it on his own, and did it over and over and over and over. This was when I realized he was doing an odd blinking thing, putting his eyes up and to the right and blinking a few times. I thought it was a cute thing he was doing at first, but he seemed to be doing it a lot, as if his eyes were dry or bothering him.

When we finally left there we went down to the first floor and played in front of the infrared camera. From there it was to the ball room near the front, and we played in the little dark room in the corner, with all the different lenses looking out. We realized there was a smaller little corner behind it with mirrors on all the walls and he went in there and played around and danced. We played in this “spy place” for a long time, and that’s where we were when Carly found us.

We then went to the sand play area for the first time. There are air compressor nozzles out there for cleaning off your shoes. Totally reminded me of Korea. He played with those, then went to choose some food. He ended up with a tuna salad sandwich. Buying packaged food like that was also very Korean. He ate, then played some more. He walked around the edge, balancing.

We left a little before 5. He wanted me to carry him down the stairs so he wouldn’t get “stairsick”. He claimed it was a real thing, although he’s never been stairsick, he said. He told me not to be someone who stands in line if I get another job “Because it’s a really hard job.” We had talked about people being paid to wait in long lines a couple days ago. Carly drove home, and we read some My Little Pony on the way home when I was afraid he might choose to nap.

At home we read more My Little Pony, then I went for a run and took a shower.

We went upstairs for a Brother game. He had made an invention with a toilet paper tube with a string tied to it. Bar asked what Baby Sister likes: “Danger”. And the game went from there. The tube invenrion shot What ever they thought about, like candy, or nails for Brother’s playhouse, although he managed to have them hit his forehead. Bar then had her medical bots come and take care of him. That was a new detail August came up with.

I got him in the bathroom and he played in the sink. He asked if Rainbow Dash was a boy or a girl. He then declared “No, Rainbow Dash is a girl. AND A BOY!” He discussed which was the best pony again and said “I’d like to be Rainbow Dash.” I asked him what he liked about her and he said “Liking to not run away.”

He was playing with the toilet paper roll invention and said “I should throw this in the shower then pull it out. That would be heroic.”

I washed him, then he played with the little flashlight and put a pink balloon over it and turned out the lights in the bedroom. He also looked at Cherie’s mandala and we talked about how she could make the shoes so geometric. He then was saying something and we practiced the ‘l’ sound. I showed him where my tongue was and he practiced saying ‘little’. He then went to show Carly when he was making the sound, telling her “Mama! You’re little!” And he said “Celestia sells sea shells by the sea shore.” Which is from My Little Pony.

I left them at 9:30.

On TV at the museum I saw two bands worth looking into: Wondergaap, Gizzmo from Fete de la Musique. Which was interesting, because it was a French music festival with bands singing in English on an Arabic TV channel.

Trying to catch a butterfly: