stella at home: Weekend happenings

We live in an international time in an international city, at least according to all the press Houston is getting lately for being so cool. I am not sure how I feel about this because sometimes I think that all of this worldliness dilutes us, but I guess if I really felt strongly about this I would live elsewhere and have married differently.

This weekend started out with a trip to greekfest. The kids tanked up on gyro meat and learned about the traditional clothing of Crete. And there was dancing, of course and now I have a 5 year old who wants to go to Crete.

Saturday marked the end of soccer season . H was one of the coaches and I was very proud of his involvement. The kids all seemed to really like him, too. One kid asked Annabelle, "does your dad have a black belt?" Awesomeness.

Then on Saturday night we headed to Miller Outdoor Theater to see a performance of la boheme. Miller Outdoor Theater might be the coolest thing about cool Houston. They provide free, world class entertainment for the whole city to enjoy all while eating a picnic supper. We weren't sure how opera would go over with the 2 and 5 year old crowd, but figured that if you re going to introduce your kids to it, this is the way to do it. Personally I will always think of this performance as "la bathroom," because I took Tallulah there 4 times including once for a poop accident. Tallulah was content as long as she had a cupcake, and since I had 6 of them and since she is a slow eater, I was able to read the libretto to Annabelle. Annabelle fell in love with Mimi and when I returned from one of my trips to the loo with Miss Luu she was overjoyed to tell me that Mimi decided to stay with Rodolfo .

And then came act four. There questions like, " Is that the doctor??" "Is the doctor coming soon?? " And then the realization, " mommy I don't think the doctor is going to make it in time." In the end she was crying and told us she "hated this opera" which is strong for her because she thinks hate is a bad word, which, of course, it is. Hyphen snapped a picture of her anguish with his phone, you can almost see it in the dark .

Then today after mass, we headed to Chinatown to eat at Tan Tan. Annabelle asked why we always have to eat at Japanese restaurants, to which I replied " because you are half Japanese." And that's how your dad got his black belt and why he can wax the car so well.