Sunday Kite flying

After repairing the oven, Gab was on a roll so she spent the day repairing the shower. She tore out the shoddy caulking, and some of the leaky cover-up from the leaky tile job. Then she patched, cemented, and re-sealed the tile, re-caulked the shower, and opened the tile drains. During this time the rest of the family was on our own for puppy doggie-sitting Parker, baby-sitting Eitana, Sunday school, cooking, cleaning, laundry, taking Maddie swimming, and shopping.

Eitana noticed that it was windy outside, so we went to fly her kite. She navigated it perfectly around the street lamps and trees and had it riding the breeze. She has natural talent at kite flying! I went to tie the kite off on the cyclone fence but I let go of the string and it flew away. It eventually snagged in a tree across the street from Woodridge Elementary school. Eitana was very upset. She did not want to leave the kite stuck in a tree. She got most of the way up the trunk of the tree where the kite snagged; then I convinced her to climb down.

We went home, ate lunch, gathered Yofiel and some of the teenagers (only Laura, Adinah, and Apple came), and set out to retrieve the kite. Eitana and I drove in the car so we were the first to arrive. I attached a string to a stone and eventually snared the spool and string that was stuck in the tree so I pulled it down. Pulling on the string elevated the kite from the neighbor’s yard up into the tree. Yofi and Laura were next to arrive (they jogged). They each tried without success to climb up the tree. Last to arrive were Apple and Adinah; they had, apparently strolled leisurely to the school. Apple went up the tree faster than he had walked to the school. He was 15 meters up when the owner of the house next door, who had not returned the kite after it landed in his yard, came out yelling that Apple had to come down immediately because if Apple fell, his corpse would land in this evil person’s yard. He was waving a pair of hedge sheers and looked very nasty. Apple eventually came down the tree. He said later that he was only 5 meters from the kite. Yofi and the teenagers stayed to play at the elementary school while Eitana and I drove to Home Depot to buy more quarter inch dowel rods -- two for a dollar -- to build another kite.

Gabriella took a break from grouting, sealing, caulking, cementing, ate, and helped us assemble another kite. We used two dowels, the rescued string, and a transparent garbage bag; it was much lighter than the one caught in the tree. It had superior flight characteristics as well.

While the teenagers finished the lunch dishes, we went to the International school (a

bigger field) to fly the new kite. Gab painted a face on the transparent body. It flew quite well in the mild breeze and Eitana did a great job keeping it aloft.

It flew mich higher, faster, and more stably than the kite made of newspapers. It had a higher angle of attack. Eitana was able to keep it aloft with much milder wind.

Eventually we headed home; Gab fried up a vegetable massala with Tofu that was spicy but fantastic. We had it on rice. Even the teenagers enjoyed it. They were so thankful cleaned up the dinner dishes, then headed out for some depressive time at another friend's house. They are having a great spring break so far but I worry that they don't have goals. Simeon spent a few hours outlining his goals for the rest of the vacation. He avoided everyone, eating asynchronously with the family.