Why are we wide awake at 3:00 in the morning?, Ping asked me a few hours ago.  We had been awake since a little before 2:00, so we decided to get up.  I thought maybe the moon was full, but the new moon just started a couple of days ago.  Ping was wondering if we ate something that was keeping us awake.  She ate some eel, but I didn't eat any of it this time, so it wouldn't be that, and we couldn't think of anything else that might be the cause.

It was too early to make coffee and declare the day under way, so we just worked together for a while in our home office and then went back to bed.  It was still a restless sleep, but we slept.  I rose at dawn, but Ping is still sleeping.

The coffee is delicious.  The birds are singing.  The breeze that was blowing during the night is gone and the air is still.  The little potted trees on our patio atrium are enjoying the nitrogen from the rain that fell on them over the past several days.  The seeds that Ping saved from the winter squash (she calls it pumpkin) that she used in the congee soup yesterday are drying out on the counter near the patio door.  The morning newspaper is on my desk, tempting me to stop writing and find out what others wrote.

In half an hour it will be time to awaken Cici so we can be ready to go to the zoo when her Vietnamese classmate arrives at our home around 8:30.  We will meet up with a Chinese classmate at the zoo and the three girls will take pictures of animals and prepare a paper to earn extra credit in biology.

The Chinese girl who will meet us at the zoo is a remarkable little artist.  Cici showed me a pair of her canvas athletic shoes yesterday.  Her friend had drawn the face of a Chinese boy on the toe portion of one shoe, and the face of a Chinese girl on the toe portion of the other shoe.  They were shockingly well drawn.

All three of these girls are excellent students.  The Chinese girl who will meet us is a senior, and she has already done this extra credit project.  She is nevertheless returning to the zoo to act as a mentor for the two younger girls.  I haven't been to the zoo in more than ten years.  It is a nice day, so this should be an enjoyable trip.  With the Vietnamese girl in the group, the girls will have to speak English in order to communicate, which means that I woud be excluded from the conversation.  Well, at least not on the basis of language.