Halloween Parade

This is Z without her ears on doing her best lion growl.

Yesterday they held a little Halloween Party at the park. There was face-painting, beanbag tossing, sugary snacks, a pet costume contest (ugh), punkin'-chuckin' trebuchet, mutant elephants, potato people, a human fly and a giant ear of corn. Typical Providence.


Before she went away for the weekend, Rachel put together a cute little lion/cat costume for Zora. I bungled the whiskers, but most everyone got it. Some people called out "bear," so I had to show them her tail, but everyone thought it was cute.

A few photos from my camera (it's still on life support).



So there was a costume parade, which Z took very seriously. She insisted on walking most of it and had a shaker that she kept going most of the time. The Corn Guy led the parade and the Elephant and Potato guys showed up midway. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of their arrival, because it was pandemonium. Some kids burst into tears and some attacked them. It was a good show.

Tail end of the parade, where the insistent short-strides coagulated.





Here she is with another neighborhood toddler, Kyle. I've never known a kid (he's a few months older than Zora) who can speak like he can. I swear he uses the subjunctive better than I do.

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The arrival of the Elephant Guy.



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She fell asleep on the walk home, of course.

October update

This week, cousin Jamie's Bat Mitzvah in Jersey aligned with a long holiday weekend, our pending wood anniversary, and a desperate need to use up those accumulating vacation days. We've taken the opportunity to traipse up and down Route 95 a little bit, including several hours each getting over the George Washington Bridge and then the Lincoln tunnel. Zora really appreciated the opportunity to get an up-close, slow-motion look at our nation's crumbling infrastructure.

Even more so, she appreciated the foods of the Northeast Megalopolis, with great gusto. At the Ethiopian place in New Haven Friday night, Doro Wat was a great hit, as were lentil samosas and great wads of injera. We don't need to mention the chocolate cake for desert.

At the kiddush in Leonia, NJ on Saturday, she found that the flavor of the pickled herring in sour cream was very much to her liking, but not so much the texture. The challah, fruit salad and a black-and-white cookie were more her speed.

Saturday night in Brooklyn, Zora really appreciated the lasagna with home-made ricotta and fresh-baked semolina bread whipped up by Auntie Stef, not to mention the awesome gen-u-ine caesar salad created by Marc, with real anchovies and everything. After a short walk to Blue Marble ice cream, we failed to prevent her from consuming 3/4 of a butter pecan ice cream cone (Keem! Keem!).

Sunday morning, Zora was up for dim sum. Clams in black bean sauce, fried noodles, chive dumplings and sundry other delicious treats were a huge hit.


She really is surprisingly adept with chopsticks, and is very adamant about using them instead of a fork. There ends up being a huge mess, but we've got to laud her effort to be culturally sensitive.

She's pretty excited about the new shoes we found in the same neighborhood.


Chinatown was, frankly, a little overwhelming.