travels

The children and I went home for the funeral of an old family friend. The littles are very lucky in that this was the first funeral the older two had ever been to. Ruby proudly explained that she had been to Nancy Hadden's mother's "singing funeral". The older two knew that Nena was in the little box up front, but Ruby had no idea. I asked her if she knew what dying was. At first she said yes and then no, and then we compared it to butterflies and got lost in metamorphosis and egg laying and wanted to know where Nena left her eggs. Then we ate devilled eggs and played handbells.

Ella and I ran to Ellwood Thompson in Richmond looking for the elusive Kim Kim Sauce, a locally made Korean hot sauce. Back when I lived in the neighborhood the store was small and a little musty. Now, it is bright and big smells like incense and fruit and vegan chicken. There is a beautiful café in the back with a Whole Foods style salad bar, hot food bar, and even a living raw food bar. They have Kombucha and Cider in kegs with big displays of mason jars for taking it home. Apparently that day they had more than 700 local items for sale. Then we ran in to Penzeys for Za'atar and Vietnamese Cinnamon and headed back to my mother's house.

We got married right there in front of that bench in the picture. Life in fast forward.