Thinking Allowed: Castles, Rockets, and Gold

I got to go away for a night to climb a mountain fittingly called the castle. Given road closures and potholes getting to the base of the castle proved to be as difficult as crossing an actual moat on horseback. Actually, it likely took us longer to get to the start of the trail than up to the top of the mountain. It was a lovely hike though and such a novelty to get to backpack without children. My pack felt inappropriately empty. How unusual to hike with another person who didn't whine a single time and never asked me to carry her pack. How charming adults can be even though they aren't nearly as cute as kids. To get to the top of the castle, in addition to making it safely to the start of the trail, one has to scramble up rocks and a series of cliffs. To assist there were a series of ropes tied to a series of roots that we used to haul ourselves up. This was an exercise in faith in whoever put the ropes in place. Luckily, I am a trusting person and the invisible castle guards granted us fair weather. The peak of the castle was exactly as you would envision a castle to be. Flat and endlessly fairy like with bushes and puddles of intrigue and heart stopping views. It was all so pleasant that I nearly felt it appropriate to sing my least favorite (and Tovas favorite) refrain: "Im the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal"

It is almost Aurora's birthday. Its loomingness made us realize that we still had to put into action her gift from last year. How has a year gone by without us launching the rocket? To be fair it was much more involved then we thought. Rocket science really. It came in parts so its construction required assembly and an understanding of how rockets work or at least a rediscovery of how super glue works much quicker than normal glue. Also, it required fire proof paper. This meant one of us had to go out and buy this supposedly necessary item which as you can imagine never happened. Eventually Jakob got around to pulling up an internet recipe and made a batch of fire proof toilet paper. And then we needed the weather to cooperate. Somehow whenever we got all geared up to launch it would rain or get windy. We were feeling the sort of dejection that is particular to places like Cape Canaveral. And then we got an afternoon that was sunny and calm so we quickly glued some last minute things on to the rocket. All very scientific. We walked over to the closest cricket oval with three of our children, and three children who were not ours but eager to come along. It went incredibly high! So high that one child claimed she only saw it once it was gone. And then the parachute worked and it slowly drifted back down to us until a breeze got hold of it and then it slowly drifted away from the oval and over some appartment buildings. I grabbed a few girls and sweettalked our way onto some properties to search for our lost property. We never did find the rocket. We considered putting up lost signs but then realized whoevers property our rocket crash landed into might not be as excited about rockets as us.

Aurora and I both list matcha ice cream as one of our favorite flavors. We were thrilled to find out that a stand opened up in our local market selling precisely this item. When we went to check it out we saw on the menu that the only topping available was gold. Yes real gold. We probably stood at the counter for 15 minutes grilling the poor woman at the counter with all our questions about gold consumption. What does it taste like? Why do people eat it? Is it ethically wrong to eat a precious metal? Is it bad for you? Is it good for you? How many people actually order this item off the menu? What does it look like? and on and on. The gold topping cost as much as the ice cream itself so we didn't actually try it but I jokingly told Aurora we could eat gold in honor of her birthday. It was a bit early but last week we went out and did just that. It felt entirely frivolous which I suppose was the point. Eating the gold answered some of our questions but not all. We still don't really understand why people eat gold. Especially as half of us thought it tasted like nothing and the other half thought it tasted of tinfoil.