Daily Life With The Dynamic Duo

Loretta offers me support while I do the dishes...

She thoughtfully makes any stray morsels of fallen food disappear, so I don't have to vacuum...

"I think I'll call Papa on his store walkie talkie. But first I'll pretend to be Professor Poopy Pants."

Mohawk boy in bath.

It's For the Birds! The bird feeder Todd set up isn't exactly working out the way we had imagined...

But now we have The Squirrel Channel to keep the kids entertained!

Chillin' With The Mini-Pfeiffers "Yes, sometimes we sit in our toy bins. What of it?"

Loretta's a real city girl. Playing happily with Uncle Tommy.
Henry fell on the concrete recently and landed right on his old lip.

You think a fat lip is going to slow Henry down? No way.

I wasn't home when it happened. (thank god, cuz' it was a gusher) Todd called me at work to tell me. After I established that Henry was fine, and Todd explained to me how he looked, I said. "Great. It's not like he has his school picture tomorrow or anything." Which of course, he did...

I kept giving him Otter Pops all the night before and that morning...

I think he dug that fat lip, big time.

O Steel

Some Carribean flava' wafted through Lamont Plaza in March as the kids from Oberlin Steel played their steel-drummed hearts out. Here's the tail end of their performance above. This 20-member band was AMAZING. The fact that this many Oberlin students were so near my house was of course, disconcerting, but nothing seemed to be missing afterwards. ;) The Obies were on their Spring Break and traveled to DC to play in a formal concert with DC's own Pan Masters Steel Orchestra.

Here's Todd and Loretta cavorting with two members of the group.

Our friend Chris juggled.

And Loretta tried to figure out what the heck these Ohio hippies were doing in our neighborhood.

Here s'more about Oberlin Steel in DC. Some of these shots (where the kids are being interviewed mostly) were shot in Mt. P.

Bok Bok! Thanks Eastah Bunny!

On a night-before-boarding-a-morning-plane whim, I decided to go home with the kids to Cleveland for Easter. Sadly, Todd had too much work to come, but Estela and her family visited too and we had a good old time at my parent's house. Sweet Cora and her bunny rabbit friend.
The egg dyeing tradition. Tim concentrates on his dipping technique. Nonno and the boys shovel some Easter snow.
How did that clever rabbit know the first letter of each of the kids' names??
Henry was psyched about his Easter basket.
Nico was psyched about his candy carrot.

Loretta was psyched that she was handed a basket filled with chocolate and candy at 9 in the morning. She quietly ate everything in her basket and then moved onto anything within her grasp.
But it's okay, because she worked it off later.


The Easter Bunny hid all the eggs in my parent's basement.
Henry thought he found one!

Hollyweird Comes To Mt. Pleasant

So the big crew and cast of a fancy schmanzy Hollywood Film came to our corner of the world a couple weeks back. The movie State of Play filmed all around DC and made a special stop right in front of and above our hardware store. The production crew arrived three days in advance of the shoot to prepare and install a new Pfeiffer's Hardware sign.

Russell Crowe's character, a scruffy journalist, is supposed to live above our hardware store. So there were some exterior shots of Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe walking on our street, as well as some interiors of the apartment. Even though I am the self-admitted People Magazine addict, it was actually Todd who was in his seventh heaven. He spent days becoming friends with the 50 or so production crew who milled around our store, redid our display window, and painted and fixed and lit the apartment upstairs.

This is a fake machine belonging to the "Washington Globe" the fictitious newspaper Russell Crowe's character works for.

Do you think Ron Price picked this weekend to visit us by chance, or because he wanted to see the movie production?? That's our friend Caesar holding Loretta Lou. Caesar had the privilege (?) of putting his hands on Russell Crowe's chest to hold him back and calm him down when Russell became enraged at an obnoxious member of the public who was interrupting filming. True story.

The night they actually shot, there were something like 300 people standing in and around the plaza in front of the hardware store hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars. It was a carnival-like atmosphere. Really, really fun and different and bizarre and TOTALLY FREAKING COOL!
Russell was pleased.
Ben was pleased.

We were beside ourselves.

The movie comes out in April 2009. And unless the entire scene winds up on the editing room floor (which happens), Pfeiffer's Hardware should make it into the movie!

Fire In Mt. Pleasant A few weeks ago, a devastating fire broke out on Mt. Pleasant Street a few blocks from our house. The fire leveled a 4-story apartment building and was the first 5-alarm fire in 30 years in DC. In an absolute out and out miracle, no one was killed or hurt from the blaze. All the residents managed to get out safely. Two hundred people were displaced and wound up standing in the street with nothing more than their pajamas on their backs.

In the weeks that followed, our entire community (and many others) pitched in to help the displaced residents as best as we could. Big-hearted neighbors contributed at the hardware store, and we raised more than $10,000. And after being deluged with donations, they finally had to ask people to stop donating clothes, food, and furniture. It was a hard thing to see the pain these residents have gone and are going through, but it was a marvelous thing to see so many neighbors unite and help one another.

This is quite a 'hood we live in. I'm so grateful to be a part of it.

*photo credit Brandon Wu.

April Showers When those April showers hit, Gabriela and Henry will be ready!