How We Survive the Heat-wave in NYC

David studies Japanese intently as he ices his knee.

David has steadily progressed on his at-home Japanese studies, and has learned hiragana and katakana -- the basic Japanese alphabets.  He found two other programs to use at home (one inexpensive program found on iTunes, the other free on the internet), and along with the Pimsleur lessons he has been using, made a big, big leap.  I am very impressed!  He is working on his reading and writing along side his listening and speaking, and having the building blocks seem to really help him.  Japanese clicks for David, and I am amazed by how he takes to the language so swiftly.

David wrote out "Tomoko" in Japanese.  Very sweet.

It's mighty hot and humid here in New York.  Really the hottest summer I can recall -- over 90 degrees, more or less, for the past week, and for the next week.  Yuck, yuck.  Staying indoors seems the best option.  For my free time, I finally picked up the Stieg Larsson books to read -- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and the newest and the final book of the trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  Several people have told me that they were good and that I should read them.  I finished the first book in about a day and a half -- an absorbing read, sort of like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but Swedish in nature, and with a Bourne Identity-esque spy/conspiracy quality thrown in.  I found it difficult to put down at night, in part because I'd scared myself senseless from reading it -- which is what happens when I watch Law & Order: SVU marathon late into the night when I am home alone and David is working out of town.  Even though David is home with me, he was already asleep by the time I'd gotten absorbed with the especially gritty part in the novel.  I finally put it down around 3am, and was certain I would have nightmares from the "unresolved" aspect of my unfinished reading.  Luckily I slept okay.  I'm now onto the second book.  I'm glad I have the entire trilogy already on hand, because it's one of those series that I prefer to get through all at once, so I don't have to wait for the next installment.

The funny thing about the Larsson books are the names and the food described.  The names are IKEA furniture names, and the food so very Scandinavian -- which makes sense, of course, since the story takes place in Stockholm and other parts of Sweden.  IKEA furniture, being Swedish, would obviously have Swedish names.  But it all just seems funny to me, since I've never been to Sweden and all I know of it, really, is IKEA.  For instance, there is a peripheral character in the book named "Malm."  Every time he appears, I can't help but think about how I used to own a chest of drawers named the Malm from IKEA.  When one of the characters went shopping in IKEA, I just had to laugh (and it's not a laughing kind of novel).  If I were of a more suspicious nature, I might even suspect an IKEA conspiracy here... product placement, perhaps?

We may be working in Sweden next year with DD, so I'd like to think that it might be culturally useful for me to read these books... although I suppose it is not the happiest and jolliest of impressions one might receive on the country and its people.

Random obsessions of the week: Steaz Sparkling Green Tea and Pinkberry.  I discovered these sparkling tea sodas, and I am hooked.  They are basically organic green tea, made sparkling, with a hint of natural fruit flavor (my favorites are orange and blueberry-pomegranate), and naturally sweetened.  I can't stop drinking them!  (Apparently these sodas are "zero calorie" - suspicious, yes, but I'll take it to excuse my drinking entirely too many of them every day.)  And they have cute, positive, empowering little phrases under the cap.

And Pinkberry... oh, Pinkberry.  We've known about its proliferation around New York for a while, but we'd never tried it.  Now David and I are both quite hooked.  It's a frozen yogurt chain popularized in LA, which made it out to New York about a year or so ago.  There's one 2 avenue blocks away from us.  I picked up medium sized bowls of the original flavor yesterday afternoon -- David with various chocolate toppings, me with fruit -- and this afternoon, we craved another go.  I can see a habit forming... and Pinkberry delivers!!!  But I on principle do not want to get involved with getting frozen yogurt delivered to our home -- it just seems excessive.  And even though in this heat wave delivery seems like a good idea,  I stuck to this principle and walked the 2 avenue blocks for Pinkberry again today.  David has requested that next time, I get him the large size.