Susan Senator

Strange and wonderful to only have Beastie home with us. Max is at a party, and Nat is with his gang at a fancy Italian restaurant. He was so excited to be going, he has been talking about it since yesterday. He loves that group, and going places Friday nights with them. It’s all kids: high school and college age (those are the chaperones). It is a brilliant venture, and the organization has been in operation for years so they really know what they are doing. Nat has been participating in things like this since he was around 9 or 10, but this is a teen group. It is the first time he doesn’t get dropped off at a center, but rather, there are vans to take the kids to all sorts of events like Monster golf, laser tag, video game arcades, restaurants, movies. There’s a girl whom he seems to really like, and who sat next to him as they got in the van. Right away he turned to us and said, “Mommy and Daddy will leave.” What could be better than that?

So we did go. We went with Bii to try a Korean/Japanese BBQ place that opened recently downtown. I had fed Beast beforehand, knowing he would not even try a bite of it. (He had delicious fluffy scrambled eggs.) Ned and I had sushi and other good eaties. After that, a coffee and cookie. Ned showed Benj how to make a star out of wooden coffee stirrers (something each child of ours has enjoyed).

When we got home, Ned read to Ben while I danced. I had a lot of practicing to do because of my two very demanding classes. In both we are learning the absolute most correct form for doing hip drops and hip lifts. Of course the key is staying extremely lifted, insanely stretched out in the torso; the other key is to keep the back knee bent the entire time so that your “high-heel” foot does not move. That way only the one hip moves and you get that eerie isolated- body-parts look that bellydancers get. I put on my best (purple velvet) cossie and practiced. It looked pretty good. I am now pleasantly tired, ensconced in my fat yellow armchair, feeling lulled by Ned’s low voice upstairs. Soon we’ll watch a little Seinfeld or stand-up until our teenagers come home.