The days are long and the years are short

Yesterday I did a ton of Rosetta Stone work. I'm feeling more and more confident with it. I have really big goals with my Spanish overall. I don't think Rosetta Stone will get me ALL the way there, but it will get me a lot further. I really, really want to schedule some travel to a Spanish-speaking country. Of course, I could just go to Takoma Park or the New Hampshire-Langley Park area and hang around. Watch Univision, talk with my neighbor. Take a turn translating at PTA meetings (Um, no, I'm not good enough). Go to a Spanish-language Mass. But the travel would be more FUN.

The Red Line Metro train struck a person at Gallery Place. Although we only want to go as far as Union Station, mayor delays are in progress.

I am trying to convince mrmoosie to take a bus. He HATES the idea.

Our goal is to be near the Senate at 11:30am. It's a protest.

Find books about the area that we are visiting that are close to Emily's reading level. Keep on reading to her and finding new books for her to be read. Have patience, and then more patience. That's the really hard part.

I've got a lot to do today with teaching. I'm trying to cover way too much for three hours.

Emily stayed up until I got home last night. That, that was a bit of a problem since she had to wake up for Spanish this morning. She took our big (XXL) Obama T-shirt to wipe her tears on, since waking up early was tearful.

T's work is trying to interfere with his vacation plans. I may wind up taking Emily to visit family by myself, with T joining us for a weekend only. I am NOT looking forward to that since Emily is hard to rouse in the mornings (and T is better at it than I am). Of course, his work hasn't quite decided to do this (because they are impaired in the basic skill of making a decision).

We drove up to Baltimore and did touristy things around the harbor. The very first thing we did was find the bathrooms, because Emily really needed to go.

We did paddleboats. T and I paddled and Emily steered. We inspected the red boat and the sub (USS Torsk) from the water.

We saw a street performer doing a unicycle and juggling show (and insulting the audience and passers-by in a very funny manner). For example, I was wearing a tie-dye shirt and he said that I need to learn to separate colors in the wash. His main schtick was accusing various audience men of either being gay or frequenting the prostitutes nearby.

Then we discussed the tapas menu (at a Spanish tapas bar, La Tarsa) with Emily and she turned it down. Often she likes shrimp, but today she wanted crab. So we went to Phillips. They had traditional crab cakes (broiled and a little more butter) and Ocean City-style crab cakes (fried with more breading and more mustard). T ordered the Ocean City, I order the traditional and Emily ordered the crab cake sandwich (one crab cake with a bun, lettuce, tomato, and french fries). All of them came with cole slaw. That is some of the best cole slaw I've had.

After that Emily played on the interactive floor game for nearly an hour, while T and I discussed things we have to do to fix our back yard.

Then we watched fudge being rolled at the Fudgery and bought a whole bunch.

Then we saw another street performer.

Then we got ice cream.

Then a little girl (not ours) had a really bad fall on her head on the cement. Her parents were younger than us, and were talking nervously and sitting there. I went over and asked a few questions about whether she cried immediately (she did), how her pupils looked (the same and they responded to light) and whether she had thrown up (she hadn't). All of their answers are good for minimal head injury. They said that there was a Nightime Pediatrics near their home--an hour and a half away, but they were afraid that they should not let her sleep in the car. I said that if it was me, I'd get driving and take her right in near their house. Baltimore has great hospitals, but a lot of people in the ERs, and they would probably be seen quickly at home, and much later if they tried to go to a close ER. Plus the signs were good.

Then we left and it started pouring down rain. I really hope that the other family got moving.

We got totally drenched before we got to our car and drove home.

So the radio silence might end.