My Spanish class: Dan, Matt, Giovanni (front), Eric and Ashley
We had our first snow in DC on Wednesday. It didn’t stick very much, but it was very pretty to watch through the window of Spanish class.
Last Sunday, John and I spent the day at the Mexican film festival at the Museum of Natural History. We saw a couple of good films – when it was over, we were some of the first people out of the auditorium – we went upstairs, thinking we’d go out the front door. But, the museum had closed while we were in the movie, so we were alone in the dark with that huge stuffed elephant in the lobby – it was sort of creepy!
Friday was our last day with our Spanish teacher Giovanni (we rotate teachers every few weeks), so I took Bolivian pastries for breakfast, then we all went out to lunch together at a Peruvian restaurant. We also had a little Christmas celebration in the language school, where we butchered a few carols in Spanish.
I left the house Saturday morning at 5 AM for a whirlwind trip to Hot Springs to help Mom with the new house. The house is great and she seems really happy there. I had a few problems along the way…we couldn’t land in Little Rock due to fog, so we had to land in Memphis. I shared a car to Little Rock with three other people from our flight. The other woman in the car looked familiar to me – turns out it was Mindy, a woman John worked with at Systematics. The last time I saw her was at our house in Costa Rica – pretty funny. There was a younger guy riding with us who was from Mountain Home. When he heard my name, he asked if I was related to Ginger Crippen – his sister took piano lessons from her! Small world.
I finally got to Hot Springs around 3 PM, and immediately started shopping for new things for the house. I finally went to bed around midnight, only to be woken up around 2AM. Mom’s cat was sick and we really thought he was about to die (he’s 16), so we called the vet and were at the emergency animal hospital for a few hours (the cat’s fine now). After a few hours of sleep, I made a second trip to Walmart for more things, and kept working.
As I was waving bye to Mom around 2PM Sunday afternoon, I noticed she couldn’t open her front door – the storm door had locked behind us automatically! We had to call a locksmith to come let her in – once I was sure he was within 5 minutes from her house, I left to make a mad dash for my flight in Little Rock. I made it, thank goodness, and somehow managed an on-time arrival back in DC around 10PM. Needless to say, I was pooped!
Mom’s new house