Sequestered in Seattle, Day 278

Monday the Electoral College voted, and I am pleasantly surprised how nearly normal that felt, after almost six weeks of deviance. I managed to ignore the proceedings until I saw the news in the afternoon. The morning was a typical Monday, getting the kids to wake up on time (except Colin, who had started watching TV without eating breakfast before I arrived downstairs), helping them with breakfast, getting my own breakfast ready, doing my Spanish and Chinese lessons on Duolingo, brushing my teeth, taking out the garbage, and heading down to work.

After lunch, Nicole and I took Eric on an errand walk while the other kids finished up school. We stopped at Paola's to drop off a gift for Flavia, stopped at Bartell to exchange a SodaStream canister, and finally went to the Dispatch to mail our packages. Eric and I waited outside in each place. He seemed mostly in his own world on the walk, although he hid behind me and made me spin in circles outside Bartell. On the way home, we stopped to see the owl. There were only a couple other people in the street looking at it, though we heard there were more in the alley. However, by the time we moved on, the crowd had grown.

After work was pizza making. Only Lydia had the usual ravenous appetite this week. There's more than half a pizza left, and I only made three. (I use the same amount of dough whether I make three or four from them, so three is not as different from four as you might expect, although the amount of toppings is typically less.) Nicole, Rachel, and I watched the latest His Dark Materials while the other kids chatted with their friends. Then we read three whole chapters of Troubletwisters, which pushed us pretty late. Now I'm up waiting to knead the bread dough I've mixed. In addition to sandwich bread for tomorrow, I'm hoping to send a small loaf to Colin's teacher. He's supposed to make a card for her, to give to her when he goes to pick up some materials. But so far, only Lydia has worked on a card. Ms. DeLanda was her math teacher when she was in second grade.