Rainy Day In Darien (Marisa's Violin Concert)

With Marisa, After Her Concert

Dogwoods

Up at 6:00 on a rainy morn here in Darien, may stay this way through the weekend.  I just got back from driving Ramiro to the train station in Stamford where he's taking the train to Boston for a meeting, then flying to Dallas later in the day, to attend the Byron Nelson Golf tournament with clients tomorrow, Friday, before flying home at night, a long 36 hours for him.  Right now Evie and I are sitting in the den, waiting for Marisa to get up and Beth has just driven off to take Mitchell to school.  Lots of things going on in the morning when you have kids.

We had another easy drive from Chautauqua yesterday, leaving just before 7:00, arriving in Darien around 2:30.  We expected rain most of the way, but it was a sunny day, the hills and countryside getting increasingly green as we drove east.  The trees are not yet fully in bloom, so they are an interesting spring like chartreuse color, at least that's what I would call it.  In the Catskills, I saw lots of guys fishing for trout I assume, in the crisp spring air, bright spring sunshine.  It's a great time of year to be there when it's warm and the sun is out.

When we got to Beth's, Cody, the dog, came running out, greeted us with what we call his happy dance, as he's always glad to see us because I take him for walks usually twice a day, a treat for him.  We relaxed till about 3:45 when we drove over to the high school to watch Mitch's team play volleyball.  He fractured his ankle a couple of weeks ago so he couldn't play but we knew a number of kids from the team from last year so it was fun to watch.  Marisa was practicing for her concert till 4:30.  She then came to the gym until the game ended, then we went home to get her a snack before the concert.  Beth dropped her off around 6:10 and we all drove over at 7:00 for the concert which lasted till about 8:15, before a fairly crowded auditorium.  Marisa played violin in the 5th grade orchestra, then sang in the chorus.  They were surprisingly good for that young and lots of kids seemed to participate in the music program, which is big deal in the schools in Darien.

Marisa The Prodigy

We came home and Beth had made chicken tacos earlier in the day so we all had a couple of tacos for dinner with the whole family.  Around 9:00, I took Marisa up to bed, talked with her for awhile before Evie came up to take over.  Marisa is a delight, happy and talkative, especially at bedtime.  Mitch spent a couple of hours at his desk doing chemistry and math homework.  We watched some TV with Beth and Rami and they wanted us to see their favorite show, an adult cartoon called Archer.  It's hard to say whether we will like it after one show, but we will give it a try.