magic milk

At lunch today, the guest who’s a forensic scientist, cub scout leader and trampoline coach, with neon pink/platinum blonde/black hair, was entertaining up with stories from classroom talks and science demonstrations she does. One of the science demonstrations is ‘magic milk’ – you take a plate of milk, add food coloring, and touch the surface of the milk with a toothpick coated in ‘washing-up liquid,’ a.k.a. dish soap. The food coloring ‘runs away’ from the toothpick, and if you add enough soap, it’ll just keep moving on its own. If it’s possible, I think the nine grown-ups gathered around the plate were more entertained than the kids usually are. Since food coloring isn’t common in an organic household, we only found yellow, but we’d had beetroot with lunch, so we had a stand-in for pink.

The real magic came into play when we had to move the by-now-brimming plate from the dining room table to the kitchen sink.

Two of Jane’s daughters arrived tonight for her birthday this weekend, and Arvind made his famous Pujji Pizzas (he had several pizza places in Nelson a few years after he arrived in New Zealand). The big screen returned again after a longer than usual hiatus, and we watched Miss Potter tonight, then I headed to my caravan a little early to finish up my painting for Jane.