August 20, 2006
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This evening Mom and Dad treated Don, Alex, Beth, Charles, Dmitry and me to the Mexican buffet at the club:
Charles, regrettably, has decided his mother’s had sufficient opportunity to take his picture:
Mom, Beth and Hannah:
Earlier in the afternoon Jonathan came over to visit:
It was a good afternoon, with extreme silliness:
Dmitry mayn’t be scholastically gifted, but he has a native cleverness that’s amusing. His English teacher told me this story from last week:
She’d been giving a lesson on abstract versus concrete nouns, explaining that the latter are those capable of being touched, held, put in a box, sold on eBay, etc. To hammer home the definitions she started to toss out examples, calling upon the students to determine which type of noun it was….abstract or concrete.
“Democracy,” she said, then pointed to Dmitry.
“Concrete” came his response, to her dismay.
“Concrete?” she asked. “Dmitry, how can democracy be put in a box, for heaven’s sake?”
To which he replied, “Easy. Take a piece of paper, write ‘democracy’ on it, then put the paper in a box.”
She said she was torn between hugging him and slapping him upside the head.
