art deco + literature + relics

This is what happened on the way home from Adventure Day Three. She passed out so hard in the car that I was able to move her to the couch where she continued to snore.

 And then Larry came home, then this happened. I had a hard time waking both of them.

 Before setting off for Adventure Day Four, I thought I would get a little computer time in but Thomas had other plans. I deal with this a lot. I lay out work on the table and he is in it, on it, over it. Mavis, always the perfect lady, never tries to help.

After shooing him away, KatieRoz picked us up for the trip downtown to our incredible library's main branch. It is an impeccable art deco structure. These are the original elevators. The girls wore capes "like Elsa" (of course). Boy were they the scene traipsing around there as if cape wearing was the norm.

Relics. The girls had no idea what these were. It had a cord. It was this silver contraption with a phone on it? Ella blurted out, "It's making this weird noise." Uhhh, yes. That would be a dial tone, Ella. Think about it - they have no idea what a dial tone is, let alone a corded phone.

 

The children's area is a wonderland - including this salt water fish tank with great peep windows for viewing. The capes clearly make this viewing better.

 



Roz is checking on "Red dragon with a big fat belly" to make sure she doesn't need food. This is their normal routine. Ella is a dragon, Roz (not a fan of dragons AT ALL) checks on her with any food requirements. Odd birds.

Red Dragon, reading about dragons.

 One of the current fascinations at our house is maps - any kind. She enjoys making them too. So while they were flitting around, I grabbed the wonderful librarian. Have I mentioned my love and adoration for librarians? Especially children's librarians? Wow. Who needs the Internet?! I wanted to direct the girls to the appropriate aisle of maps or almanacs that would entice them. She hit the jackpot. We came home with two huge (translation: heavy) map books, including a story book of a little guy and his dad wandering New York City in story-form.

Not to be outdone, as if the librarian just KNEW that Roz had traveled to Paris with her parents and grandparents, she handed over a story book of a little girl and her grandpa in Paris. Her face lit up so brightly.



The girls with our genius librarian.

We finally ripped them out of there to go catch lunch with Larry at our favorite diner. This might be one of my favorite elevator selfies in a long time. Again, I think the capes really add something.



 After lunch, I made them pose for this. Roz, always the willing participant, was far more cooperative than Ella. It wasn't until after I snapped it that I read the writing in the upper right corner: "This Frontier Needs Heroes." I don't know if there was ever a pair more ready to become that...on the brink of big-kid school.

Filters are fun. This photo could be 100 years old.

We came back to our house to let the girls wind down a little before KatieRoz pushed off. It was Thursday. In less than 24 hours, Roz was starting Kindergarten. Four years of the KatieRoz routine/era was coming to an end. The girls didn't realize this. The moms were hypersensitive to this fact. It all felt pretty surreal. When you consider that almost every Thursday and sporadic Tuesdays (while I worked from home) were spent steeped in each other, well...that is over 200 adventures.

Do I think these two are going to drift apart? Impossible. Do I think Katie and I are going to drift apart? Unthinkable. Do I think the universe is swirling and changing and off-balance? Absolutely and it is going to take some time getting used to.

Ella is who she is today in part because of the friendship and love she shares with Roz, Katie and Patrick. Roz is the closest thing she's known to a sibling. So our times together will be have to be more intentional as we weave our ways through different school system schedules and obligations. We will be seeing more of each other during weekends, I suspect. All of this is good. But for awhile, Katie and I are mourning the loss of this really, incredible thing we have shared the last four years. How blessed are we.

~H

PS: Adventure Day Five is a whopper. Stay tuned.