had the best weekday yesterday. our upstairs neighbors had informed us they were getting an exterminator for the attic (yeesh, we didn't even know woody HAD an attic) and it wouldn't be safe for anything living to be home for about 5 or so hours midday. Molly was kind enough to let me bring our cats (!) over and have me spend the day with her. thennn her mom invited her for lunch at waffle shop (!) and i got to tag along after picking up Maria from school. we ate awesomely retro lunch (Maria was excited at the prospect of waffles and they did not disappoint; she wound up eating her waffle with gusto like a pizza in four slices where the sauce is syrup and ends up in her hair), the weather got gorgeous as we were leaving, on the shuttle back to the lot a woman heard me mention pittsburgh and we briefly commiserated over how unexpectedly great it is (how much philanthropy and culture there is) which reminded me of the first year when a guy talked about valencia with me, we saw this funny orange tom cat in the parking lot, browsed a book shop that surprised me with how interesting its picks were (lotsa Eudora Welty, bell hooks of all people, quality picture books, and an nyrb volume of a writer's notebook traveling to europe's different monasteries), and drove around looking at pretty houses for sale. then i got to play with Maria most of the afternoon and man, i forget all the time how awesome and hilarious she is. seriously, i am not much of a kid person really--never anti-kid, don't get me wrong, but i've often found it difficult to communicate or relate well with them (the telling exceptions were the autistic kids i one-on-oned with)--but with Maria it's uncanny how everything just clicks, it's all just so easy. it sounds cheesy but i feel like i understand her in this way that touches me so. she takes me back to what it was like being little in a way i don't experience with other kids. we were in her room and she was making me dinner with her play kitchen--"chicken meatloaf" (pause, she finds the plastic chicken and puts it in the oven, turns and sees a big plastic toy ant) "...with ants!" it reminded Molly of eating ants at camp once; "they're kind of lemony." then we built a lego cactus that wound up becoming a "cactus building" complete with a hinged door at the bottom she put a dinosaur in so he could take the elevator up to the top. when i mentioned offhand my favorite color was the celadon green one of the blocks was, later she picked it up and put it near the top and said "i'm using this one here because it's your favorite." then randomly while she was puttering around and Molly and i were on the bed chatting she turned and said abruptly "i want to stay small. i don't want to get big." "how come?" "because when you get big, you don't know what you're supposed to do." that just killed me. she also apparently likes to play with her friend at school by rolling around in sand and having someone pour it over her head so she can feel it in her hair. i used to do the exact same thing; there was something about getting used to the novel sensation of the grit against your skin (i'm the same weirdo kid who used to spend HOURS at the beach just at the shore line, pouring the heavy-wet silty sand through my hands over and over and over...) to be a broken record, she reminds me so much of myself at that age and i just like being around her so. augh.

Molly and i got to talk politics, gardening plans and fantasies (she and her mom make me so jealous with the fig tree, raspberries, blackberries, lemon tree, g'ah), easter menu planning, favorite cookbooks (she has a great collection), families, children's picture books, decorating Lila's room/canvas painting, travel, potential collaborative macaron-making (hee), the new nearby oyster bar we're interested in trying together, and our vets (turns out we now have the same one! a good vote of confidence). Stella seems to recognize me lately; i guess we've house-sat enough now she kinda-sorta likes me. that makes me happy; she's one of my favorite dogs.

Robert swung by after work because he got off early and they weren't done at our apartment. he polished off my leftover boston cream pie (a version i'd never encountered, with no chocolate glazed top or split cake with custard in the middle but rather a chunk of the same kind of cake drowned in a very sweet, runnier but similar kind of custard sauce dotted with burnt-sugar-type caramel flecks that sort of exploded salty-sweet in your mouth like pop rocks). we listened to Maria sing and dance with her toy microphone (so funny and awesome) and do "skinnamarinky dinky dink" (sp??). took me right back to days of Sharon, Lois, and Brahm (again, sp?).

we came home, lounged around on the bed with the shades all the way up enjoying the perfect afternoon air, then decided to walk down to the new gelato shop. oh my. nobody told me it was not only YoLo plus gelato, but also a muddy's-meets-bleeding-heart-type bakery. !!!! they just so happened to have lavendar-lemon cupcakes, coconut basil macaroons, wasabi lime bars, chocolate-ginger cupcakes with goat cheese icing, g'ah i could go on...and the gelato flavors were as exciting as i'd hoped they'd be. fresh pear, ginger-whiskey, honey-pistachio (yay!), sea salt caramel and coffee, green tea and local apple orchard preserves...as R said it was like if "muddy's meets bleeding heart meets yo lo meets those heladerias in valencia". the only way that place could be more one-stop-sweets mind-blowing is if it was housing caminos de michoacan's panaderia and the coming paletas shop, har. and tamales or tortillas, tacos or something, g'ah. just over the top, and it's DOWN THE STREET. it takes five minutes to walk there. and it's going to be warm soon, for months on end. ah.

came home and the cats forgave us for the horrible ordeals i've put them through this week (and people say they aren't like dogs!). we watched the first three eps of season 4 of mad men. i've had the dvds as soon as they came out (i'd preordered them over a year ago or something) but been sitting on them in apprehension; of course i try to avoid spoilers but i just get this general vibe of uneasiness about this season online. like maybe it was disappointing? we'll see. so far the writing does feel slightly more self-conscious; there are lines in there that feel like blunt objects in a way the earlier seasons never seemed to tolerate (and i loved, loved, loved them for it). but we'll see. part of me thinks i should go back and rewatch a few earlier episodes to compare better; sometimes i think i just get more and more critical and demanding of tv and movies as i get older the more i watch and glean the mechanics and potential of things.