The Ice Cream Lady Makes Trouble

T. was still feeling sick this morning, so K. and I went to church by ourselves. She was just as good as gold, even though her allergies were making her eyes and nose water. When it came time for coffee hour (or "doughnut hour," as we like to call it) though, it turned out that this is the week of the church's annual meeting (voting on vestry, etc.) and, although there was quite a spread of fruit and croissants, there were no plates of cookies and doughnuts. I asked K. if she wanted to stay for the meeting, and she didn't, so we bought another box of Girl Scout cookies and went home.

On Thursday, the ice cream truck lady told Ed that she goes to North Carolina every Thanksgiving, and it is always 18 degrees. Now he is getting "cold feet" about moving so far north, and I wasted a fair lot of time today scouring the internet for a place somewhere between NC and FL with that perfect combination of great natural beauty, really cheap real estate, low crime, laid back home schooling laws, and now, a temperate climate. Of course, since the only calls we've had on the house have been from realtors (who are astonishingly rude about our stupidity in not listing with them), finding our dream location is probably not really that urgent.

We watched "Tarzan II: The Legend Begins, " last night. It was a pretty typical Disney straight-to-DVD sequel (pretty mediocre), but K. found it emotionally overwhelming. The story had Tarzan running away after overhearing some apes say that the group would be better off without him, and K. was clutching me and sobbing "Why did he leave his mommy?" I offered to take her to another room and read stories, but she wanted to keep watching. She continued to cry on and off through the movie, until Tarzan and his mommy were finally reunited and everyone was set to live happily ever after. This is the same little girl who packs her lunch box and tells me that she is going to go away to school.