doing just fine, thankyouverymuch

But not without a lot of help.

Nina and I kicked off our week alone together by going to a wonderful birthday party for Lucca. The food and company were wonderful and I left feeling like I could do it. Well, first Nina had to pee in the back of Kelli's car, just like Oli. I swear I had a pic of Oli using the potty her mom keeps in the back of her station wagon, and it would have been good to insert here, but I can't find it.


Sunday we called Mima and Rochelle and asked them to go for a hike with us. We went to Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve and went for a 6 mile hike. Tessie the chihuahua walked the whole way and Nina walked for at least a mile of it, she was a real trouper. We did not see a single other person hiking that day in a mini skirt and Marc Jacobs shirt.

Monday we met up with some friends at a park, which I passed off to Nina as playgroup, though we didn't go to our usual one. Then we had lunch at Whole Foods, went to Costco, and headed home from nap. After nap a friend cooked us dinner. It was an amazing Indian meal, daal, tandoori chicken, raita, and basmati brown rice. And her husband stopped at a restaurant and got some naan to complete the meal. Nina snarfed it, and with good reason, it was delish. She also played really well with my friend's daughter, though at playgroup they've never really had much interaction at all.

Tuesday Nina had school, we went and bought a gazebo for the back yard (I'll post a pic once it's assembled), then I haven't the foggiest idea what we did all afternoon, except that we both survived it, so it couldn't have been all bad.

Wednesday I woke up grumpy and having my keyboard and webcam not work at the same time was so frustrating, especially when I was trying to skype/IM Larry halfway across the world. The keyboard could not be saved, I had to get a new one. The webcam required me to reinstall the driver every time I unplugged it from the usb port. Did I mention that it was frustrating? Having the keyboard not work enabled me to free up a usb port that the webcam can have permanently so I don't have to reinstall again. My mom came and rescued Nina from me, and also gave me a new keyboard that doesn't use a usb so it's all good again. She also fed us a Brazilian fiejoada and patacones. I brought the farinha de mandioca (manioc flour) for farofa and a feast was had by all. Nina had not napped at my mom's house and so we got her into her pj's and by the time we were home she was this close to being asleep so I drove for another 5 minutes, which totally did the trick.

So I think we're going to make it (Larry comes back in the evening on Saturday), and I even had two culinary triumphs, which I'll tell you about soon.