I have the whole week off, thanks to there being only enough kids at my job to warrant two instructors. Yesterday I went on a field trip to Alum Rock Park with Alex's class. It was sort of like going to work, since I ended up taking the kids on a hike up to a place called inspiration point. It was really smoggy though, and the usual view of the valley was hidden by a gauzy layer of brown. Despite this, the hike ended up being the highlight of the trip for most of the kids. I got to see some of my old coworkers from the Youth Science Institute as well.

After we all got back home, I took the boys to see the latest Harry Potter movie, which was, as expected, quite entertaining. The film even includes a Banded Tailless Whipscorpion as one of the "magical creatures." Too bad mine died.

Last weekend, I went with my mom to the Berkeley City Club to see the new Central Works play, Achilles and Patroklos, in which characters and themes from Homer's Iliad are plopped down in the modern era, where due to the fact that history endlessly repeats itself, they fit quite nicely. It was strange to watch the combination of the ancient and the modern, but if viewed in a dreamlike, alternate history sort of way, it worked very well. Great sound design by G, as usual. To bad about the wedding going on above us and the birthday party across the hall. When moments of intense drama are interrupted by partygoers singing "happy birthday," something is irretrievably lost.

Oh, and thanks to the mother of one of Sophie's friends, I've picked up a few weekend shifts at a Christmas tree lot. The pay is lousy, but we get a free tree.