Molodetz, I Passed Russian! And Happy Halloween!

So, the good news is that I have passed the neurotic Russian oral test I took last week. Which makes me feel pretty darn good about myself. The downside of my prep work on the subject is that I keep dreaming in Russian. Not gut.


Anyways, this past week I took a break from my crazy and meaningless work project and devoted myself exclusively to Bangla, the Diplomat, Son and, to a lesser extent, Fat Cat. That meant:


(1) leaning copious amounts of particularly useful Bengali words like "jollopropat" (waterfall), "Bhumodoshagor" (Mediterranean Sea), or "daba" (chess). I can just picture myself, standing at a dainty Dhaka diplomatic soiree, drinking tea in an evening dress, discussing the merits of waterfalls, trips to the Mediterranean and the local chess competitions. I do believe that my Bengali proficiency in a variety of topics will be impressive.
(2) Cooking food
(3) Picking up Son from the FSI daycare, which has been wonderful. Thanks to the good weather, I discovered that Son has cultivated a highly refined taste in modern music. On Tuesday, I went to pick him up and had the top of my convertible down thanks to the lovely October weather. We started driving slowly home, while I was blasting Creedence on the radio and wondering about the quality of my parenting style. Soon I heard Son screeching something from the back and freaked out, quickly turned down the music and turned around to see what was going on. Only to see the child throwing his arms high in the air, huge smile on the face, making some sounds (I suspect he was singing), clearly enjoying the ride. Then he looked at me sternly, pointed to the radio and demanded "more!" Well, child, be my guest, and I turned up Creedence again.

(4) Petting Fat Cat occasionally and engaging in yet another futile attempt to cut his (very) sharp nails.
I am proud to say that I spent over 2 hours at Target one evening along with my good friend and EFM Mrs. Hawaiian, until the store actually closed, under the pretext of searching for Halloween costume for Son. Here is my philosophy on that one--Halloween is a scary holiday and so costumes should be of scary things. Son had to be a devil (if you read this blog regularly, you'd know why and agree). I personally own 2 witch hats and horrible looking, CVS-bought witch dress. I have managed to convince the Diplomat to wear a Dracula cape. We make for a very diabolical family.
This weekend revolved around Halloween, and I would like to share some thoughts on that one. On Friday night, we went to meet our fabulous friends M&M in Eastern Market, to see the local festivities. On Sunday afternoon, we also took a stroll in Georgetown where Son engaged in his first Trick or Treat experience. Now, I understand the drive for originality that some parents have, but, for the love of Pete, what exactly are you trying to say when your child's costume is a laundry basket with actual dirty clothes hanging from it? My guess is that you just airing out your dirty laundry while at the same time saving money on an actual costume. Or how about the kid whose costume was one giant LEGO block? Now THAT's exciting, no? Trick or Treat, I am a LEGO block--oh, hm, yeah, very nice, here are mini Tweezlers for you. Then again, maybe the child's dream WAS to be a giant LEGO block one day. Who am I to judge...

Otherwise, Georgetown was wonderful and Son had a fabulous time T or T-ing. I admit that the Diplomat and I were a bit unsure about the whole process at the beginning. Since we both did not grow up in the US but in poor developing countries, the notion that random people will give you free candy just for the asking was practically unsettling. We stood there, scratching ourselves pensively, pretending to be just scoping out the scenery. Mercifully, a giggly pile of kids practically overran us and started ringing doorbells left and right around us. So, we channeled our inner naturalized American and encouraged Son to procure candy. Which he fiercely did. The problem was that he insisted on eating each and every candy he got, and he would not move to the next house until it was all eaten. After the first three chocolate bars, we had to stop and explain the procedure to him and handed him the bag, promising rich rewards later.

I was also somewhat taken aback by the abundance of 30-something year old trick-or-treaters. I have to say that if was at home, handing out candy to kids, and a 35-year old, 250-lbs angel with a beard or yet another unsexy nurse comes to my door, I might just refuse to give up the candy and poignantly eat it myself.

All in all, I Halloween was awesome! Boo!