A visit from Bulgaria

D's father's sister is here from Bulgaria. For 3 months.

We were all a little surprised to learn that she was going to be here that long, but it can't be all that easy to leave Bulgaria and come here to begin with, so it makes sense that she'd want to make it last. Her English has gotten better, so I think she won't be entirely adrift or bored for the three months like she was the last time she stayed long-term with D's dad.

We visited them today, after the running and ballet and horseback riding lesson.

We were very late getting there. I know her English has improved, because she said, "Hello. You are late," when we arrived.

We had wine (I had 3 glasses, which helped everything) a meal of chicken, mashed potatoes with pickles cut up in them, and a pork-and-rice-in-cabbage-leaf dish which the girls understandably didn't want to try. D's aunt is really very sweet and patient. She presented me with the third sweater she's knitted for me (a tad small, like the others have been), and she sat and smiled at us a lot while the girls & D wrestled on the couch and I took turns asking R & S to behave and asking D to stop instigating their antics.

We stupidly had not brought the kids anything to do, and they were bored and kept coming up and whispering in my ear that they wanted to go home. It only now occurs to me that TV might have been an option for any other family, but I hadn't even considered it. Hmm.

We all fell asleep on the way home. Uh, except the driver, of course.

Now D is tanked up on the coffee he had at his dad's. It was no more than 6 ounces, but he only drinks it about once a year, and I'll have to peel him off the ceiling when he finishes watching Les Anges de L'Apocalypse, the latest Jean Reno film I've bought from amazon.fr.

Tomorrow, I hope to do another long run and then work for probably 8 hours, somehow, on the Auction catalog for the kid's school. The auction's in a week. The half marathon is in 8 days. When it's all over, we're going to have a week or two of normalcy, and then we're going to Disneyland.