It’s fascinating watching your little one grow up. I know I’m not unique in this, all parents have gone through it but as this is my first time to experience it, and Monki’s first time to live through it, I find it endlessly enlightening.
That little elf to the left there, that’s Nykštukas. Now, in general, he’s only an elf. He’s used as a logo for various products and as the name for schools. He could be one of Santa’s helpers. In fact, the literal translation from Lithuanian is really any kind of small fantasy creature.
Day 7 – June 30
Thursday was the last day we had anything planned or pre-booked. Today’s adventures were a boat ride to explore the “Jurassic Coast” and then meeting up with Rasa’s colleague Dai and his wife. The boat was leaving from Poole, a little bit further along the coast than Bournemouth (where we had been a few days earlier and where we would be meeting up with Dai) and since it had a precise departure time, so did we.
Day 6 – June 29
Honestly, today was the day around which this entire trip had been planned. Today was the day we were going to Paultons Park, home of Peppa Pig World. I’m not sure where we first heard about it, but once we did know it existed, Monki was determined to get us there. The park was about 20 minutes from where we’re staying and I was determined to get there early, like when the park opened, not having faith that it wouldn’t be crowded like Legoland was.
Day 5 – June 28
Tuesday, after Legoland, was supposed to be a rest day. In our planning, we knew we’d have been going strong for several days, sleeping in four different places in 5 nights, and so we figured that we’d take it easy before heading off to Peppa Pig world on Wednesday.
Except…
Day 4 – June 27
Monday morning came and Amy had to go to work. Luckily, we were up early enough to say good-bye and thank her and Clive once again for their generosity. We also had to say goodbye to the cats.
Day 2 – June 25
Waking up in Nottingham, we had to figure out our plans. Before we had parted the night before, I had declined John’s offer of attending a birthday party for the child of a friend of his so we were definitely Oxford bound, it was just a matter of how and when to best get there. We would spend the next few days staying with my old friend Amy and her husband Clive. I met Amy somewhere around 28-30 years ago when we both worked for the Groundlings in LA. I was a booth jockey and she was a stage manager. Since then, we’d kept in touch over social media, even managing to see each other once or twice since she’d moved to the UK. Now, she had graciously offered us all a piece of futon covered flooring in her craft room and we gladly took her up on the offer.
Here in Lithuania, Father’s Day is always on the first Sunday of June, which means it could be anywhere from the 1st-7th. Children’s Day, however, is always on June 1, so there is a chance, although it didn’t happen this year, that they will fall on the same day. But this year, on May 31, Monki was very excited for Children’s Day because, as she rightfully points out she is “a children” and so expects presents and wonderful things on this day.
My time working on Comic-Con Baltics 2022 started with working on Comic-Con Baltics 2020, when I interviewed RJ Mitte to announce his attendance. Of course, then COVID hit and everything was postponed.
Then postponed again. And again.
Continue reading “Comic Con Baltics 2022”
Seriously? It’s the end of 2021 already? How did that happen? I mean it’s been a helluva year for sure. We’ve seen friends and relatives die, related to COVID and not. We’ve seen new governments take control and, in some cases, make things better and in some cases make things much, much worse (and while I’d like to say this is an objective statement, I, better than anyone else since I repeat it several times every semester, know there is no such thing as objective.)
Continue reading “2021 wrap up”
Monki has not had a great track record when it comes to school attendance. She started her kindergarten* last year just before the pandemic closed everything down, briefly returned in the summer of 2020 until we chose to pull her out for a variety of reasons and our hope was that she’d be able to get into an actual preschool for the 21-22 school year. Continue reading “On Catching a Break”
For the first time since we went online for the Pandemic back in March of 2020, I started a new school year ready to meet some students face to face. To be fair, a year ago, we tried what we’re trying now, but I opted to stay completely online, which worked out to my benefit since it wasn’t long before everyone was online.
But now, a year and a half into this thing, I’ve got a couple of classes which are going to meet in person and last week, the first week of school, we did. It was nice to be in front of a roomful of students, to be able to see and hear their reactions, but even so, it was a bit disconcerting with everyone wearing masks. As of this coming week, I’m supposed to monitor them all (and each class has more than 60 students) to make sure they’ve been vaccinated and if they haven’t, to ask them to leave. And if they don’t leave, I’m supposed to leave. Continue reading “It’s been a week…”
It started with the car radio.
Since we got the new car, Rasa has been slowly learning all the ins and outs, the bells and whistles (and the weird little oddities) which make up our “lightning car.” One of those things was learning how to set the radio presets, which also means she spends more time in the car actually listening to the radio (which also means Monki hears more songs which I then have to get for her to put on her playlist so she can listen to the music she desires, as opposed to mine, which she has a healthy distrust of). Continue reading “Finding our way”
Day OneThis year, our joint birthdays started on Saturday the 10th of July. Since we had booked a trip away to start on the 12th, and since Monki wanted a party of some sort, we decided to do it on the Saturday before. Rasa got a Barbie cake and we invited most everyone Monki knew to come and help her celebrate. Continue reading “Birthdays: 2021 Edition”
This is a story about the importance of words and their meanings.
For a while now, Rasa has been thinking about getting a plant for the house. Not a flower, mind you, but an actual plant. She had even been thinking of a tree, musing out loud, while going through various online circulars, that “hey, this shop has lemon trees for sale.”
Now, my first thought is “why do we need a lemon tree?” followed closely by “where are we gonna put a lemon tree?” I mean, look, I’ve got nothing against lemon trees, I even like the song, but in the house? Naw. Of course, this didn’t stop her from wanting a tree and then, last week, she bought one. Not a lemon tree but some kind of Dracaena and it now sits in the corner of the hallway, just outside the office. Continue reading “On Losing Words”
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 