Free Time

I had a day off on Thursday -- Veterans Day you know -- and it was exquisite for this veteran of life. On my way up 6th avenue to the dentist I passed a string of 3 camels parading along. Sensational. A trip to the dentist which was mercifully quite quick although Pam, my hygenist and I, have become good friends exchanging ribal life commentaries and bad jokes by e-mail. Time for a coffee and a chance to read the paper as I watched other people scurrying to work. A stroll along Central Park West to do some limited food shopping and then home for nap...why not. Girls lunch at home without Kate who was safely tucked away at school. Another nap because after all it's exhuasting to be at leisure and then cook a new recipe for a friend who ultimately cancelled dinner because of ill health. That was just fine too.

More days like that and less like today which is the second day of the frenzied week surrounding the opening of the Museum's block buster exhibition on the Brain. Kate and several of her classmates saw it on Friday and pronounced it both kool and interesting. What else can you ask for?

Arnie was in for the weekend and we did all the normal family things from taking Miss Murray to the Park on what I fear is one of the last really beautiful fall days with the maples in Central Park practically shimmering in the sunlight to soccer for Kate. I was given a pass because I cooked dinner and they had gone from an indifferent sushi restaurant to the soccer fields...Sunday was the date for Kate's interview at the Beacon school, one of the better high schools here in the city which required providing a portfolio of 7th grade grades, a sample of work from last year and an essay about soemthing they had a passion for. After some grumbling Kate developed a very sophisticated outline for a piece about soccer and the importance of geometry. An immediate grabber. And she also included poetry in her portfolion rather than some earnest English paper. So of course this was the topic of her interview because it's interesting. And then she had to write a paper about her favorite character in a book so Kate chose cryptologist Victoria in Dan Brown's Angels & Demons...great choice especially since Beacon has a cryptology course....

This school business seems never to end and keeps growing tentacles in its free time...