August 2023 – Life Off Headset

Weekly Recap + what we ate: No flow state

This past week has felt like a disjointed mess. Errands. Play dates. Life. Laundry. Dishes.

Everything just felt fraught, everyone was grumpy. Or maybe just me. Then in the middle of the week, it hit me: I was feeling so off because I wasn’t in a place to have any sense of flow in my life – there is no flow in parenting. Flow. That state of total occupation where time seems to melt away. When an activity is just challenging enough to demand total attention and focus. Much ink has been spilt lately on how flow is essential to well being. When I took the Yale Happiness Course (free online – I found it very insightful and tweaked some life habits after taking this course.), flow was cited as important to achieving well being and reducing stress. When you’re in a flow state, you’re in the zone, totally present with a sense of purpose, which makes for a really enjoyable experience.

I think about activities when I find that sense of flow:

-In the Kitchen. Cooking and baking definitely put me into a flow state – the mixing and combining and seeing yummy things manifest.

-timing scores. At work, one of our jobs is to listen to the opera with a stopwatch and mark every 15 seconds in our score. It helps later on to figure out how much time there is between two moments in the show – say, a singer exiting and re-entering, or if we have live flame onstage we can tell the fire marshal how long the torch will be lit, that kind of thing. Timing the score is one of those moment of flow because I have to really concentrate to follow the music and get the marks in the right place. We all know not to bother someone when they are timing a score. And at the same time, I love it because I get to listen to the music and music is pretty awesome.

-mending. Part of it is I’m not very good at mending, so I have to concentrate very hard on it and I find it a completely absorbing activity, and it’s also really satisfying when it is done to know that I saved a piece of clothing for a few more wears.

-Writing here on the blog. I am a very slow writer, also it doesn’t come easily to me. Or maybe I have a lot to say, and like finding ways of getting words out. When I get a chunk of uninterrupted time to write, the time can fly and I’m usually really happy with the outcome.

But even aside from those “fun flows” I get a certain satisfied sense of flow in being able to just get things done. Like bang out all the “internet errand” (bills, registrations, forms, etc.) in one go, or tidying a room, or organizing a closet. I actually think I get a huge sense of flow from cleaning the kitchen late at night after the kids go go bed.

Which all brings me to my realization: There is no flow in parenting. With the kids at home, there was no chance to get through something uninterrupted, no chance to immerse myself, lose track of time. Someone was always hungry, or needed help with something, or complaining about a sibling. And even when the house was quiet – that in itself also disrupts flow because something in my brain would tick and say, “It’s too quiet, what are the kids up to????” I’d sit down for two minutes to get a task done, or roll out my yoga mat to do ten minutes of yoga… and suddenly footsteps, a knock on my door, a small hand tugging on my arm, a voice in my ear, then my train of thought and sense of purpose is shattered. If flow is about uninterrupted immersion, then yeah… there was not flow during daytime hours last week.

The other thing I found interesting in reading up about flow this week, is that researchers say flow is achieved when peak skill level combines with peak challenge level. So if you don’t feel challenged at something you’re not at all skilled at, you’re going to feel apathetic about it. I like the range of states on the chart below:

from this website, but also it features in Laurie Santos’ talks.

And here, I realized, is another reason I find no flow in parenting – Parenting, for me is a high challenge situation for which I have low skills. Empathy and understanding and doing the right thing and having the perfect response – those come neither naturally or easily for me. So there I am right in the “Anxiety” corner of the chart, though I probably hang out more in the “worry” segment. (I also feel this way about work sometimes. ) So not only does parenting disrupt any flow I may have when I undertake an activity, it also does not provide any kind of venue for intrinsic flow either.

I don’t know if I can spin that into a positive – something about savoring my children while I can despite the challenge? Or if I should just live with the expectation that when the kids are home life will feel abrupt and disjointed and fractured and at sea. After all reasonable expectations are also a component to well being. I think it’s perhaps all of it – setting boundaries with the kids, managing my own work load when they are home so that the tasks can be interrupted, and also leaning into those interruptions. That all sounds very idealistic. Well the kids are all back in school as I write this, so hopefully in the hours between 9:30a and 4:00pm, I can regain some sense of the flow that I was missing the past few weeks.

Speaking of being interrupted, I read this article last week about the importance of curiosity and how we can foster curiosity in ourselves and in children and it really struck a nerve with me. This paragraph:

Children also have to feel that they are free to express their curiosity. Adults need to ‘create environments where children know that it’s safe to ask questions, where there are opportunities to explore, where it’s OK to be wrong and to express uncertainty,’ Bonawitz says. In one high-school classroom that Engel observed, a ninth-grader raised her hand to ask if there had ever been places in the world where no one made art. ‘The teacher stopped her mid-sentence with, “Zoe, no questions now, please; it’s time for learning”,’ Engel recounted.

I think I needed this reminder as I felt myself growing impatient with the constant questions from the 6 year old. He’s very into asking the meaning of words these days, and when I’m trying to achieve a flow state, the constant interruptions for word definitions was so irksome. He’s not old enough for a dictionary yet, but even still, another thing the article points out is that research shows that children display more curiosity if the grown ups around them also engage with a curious mind. So maybe instead of just impatiently rattling off a definition to the six year old, we can get out the dictionary together. Time seems like a precious commodity and I definitely feel myself torn between doing my own thing/encouraging independence vs. engaging with my children. It’s a balance – for everyone’s sake. Constantly responding to never-ending demands certainly taps me out, but I do want to respond to my children in a way that will help them grow and learn and, yes, be curious.

Snapshots of the week:
– The 11 year old had her mini day at middle school. After all my dilemmas about how she should get to school, she ended up just walking. I followed her to school on her mini day, ten steps behind because I had the two little kids behind me. I was really proud of how she looked at her watch before she set out (she’s wearing a watch!!!), and then took note of how long it took her to get to school. It seemed a very mature thing to do. There a lot of kids who walk, so once she crosses the busy road into the next neighborhood, she’ll have lots of walking buddies. I love seeing how she is thriving with the added independence of middle school.

-We went to the 6 year old’s sneak peek at his classroom. His teacher has such boundless enthusiasm, and I’m excited for his school year.

– We went to the local botanical gardens with some friends and their kids. We saw turtles and geese. The 11 year old took over my camera and took a bajillion pictures of all the kids in various locations. It was like a fun photo shoot.

-In an attempt to curb middle of the night visits from the three year old, we’ve given her an alarm clock and told her not to come into our room until the first number is 5 or 6. We are having various degrees of success. Sometimes it works really well. Sometimes she comes when the clock says, 2:05, saying that there is a 5 and therefore it is time to get into mom and dad’s bed. There was the one time at 9:22 pm when she got out of bed, holding the clock upside down claiming that there was a 5 and she should not have to stay in bed anymore. Either she’s still figuring it out, or she’s already figured it out, crafty girl.

-Speaking of time – The kids got into my iPad and set an an alarm:

Every day at 8am. It’s good to have the reminder.

-We went to Longwood Gardens on the Sunday before school started. We hadn’t been all summer and the Husband wanted to go, so we bundled into the car, listening to How To Train Your Dragon on the way up and back. We haven’t been to Longwood Gardens in the summer in a while and I loved seeing all the colors of the blooming flowers.

One of the best parts of Longwood for me is always the vegetable gardens. They grow so many varieties of vegetables, and I always love seeing how vegetables look as they are growing, before they get plucked and delivered to the grocery store. My favorite thing this year was the rows and rows of basil, growing so tall . The smell of it all, sun soaked and fragrant, was just pure summer.

-It took me a while to find PEACE:

Grateful for:
-Siblings. I love that my kids (mostly) get along. They play together. They have the oddest conversations. They hold hands when they walk. They read to each other. They collude against the parents. They encourage each other. Particularly the oldest – she is always encouraging the little ones and can talk them out of a tantrum better than I can. Sure they have moments when they squabble and fight and take each other’s things, but on the whole, the love they have for each other shines so bright. I know you can’t predict how siblings turn out, so I hope they continue to be close as they get older.

-Public school. As I was taking the kids to their various pre-first day activities, I saw all the kids streaming to school and I thought how lucky we are to have schools were kids can go to learn. The six year old is in a French Immersion program that costs us nothing but our taxes. The 11 year old is taking a theatre class as part of the regular curriculum. And I felt grateful not just that my kids could go to school, but that any kid in our county could go to school. I borrowed a picture book from the library last week about two girls who couldn’t go to school because of the hukuo system in China. It’s a system where you have to register your residency in order to, among other things, receive services. Once registered, it is very hard to change so if you move from the rural area to the urban area, your kids aren’t guaranteed a place in the school of your new location. That’s an oversimplification, but the idea that a child would not be able to go to school makes me so sad.

-Public transportation. Another good use of my tax dollars. One day last week, we had another 6 year old over for a play date and we decided to take the bus to the library. It felt so much easier than trying to get the extra booster seat out. I just learned that the 11 year old and the 6 year old can get a bus pass to ride the county bus for free! I’m going to have to put that on my list of things to look into.

Looking forward to:
– September. A New Month! I’ve been thinking of habits and routines that I want to try to cultivate.

– Maryland Renaissance Festival! The Husband is going out of town this weekend – he’s going ot the Minnesota State Fiar with a bunch of friends. I guess it’s a bucket list trip for some of them. So a three day weekend with the kids for me. The Husband does not care for the Renaissance Festival, so I usually take the kids without him. For some reason or other he’s often away labor day weekend. Given the number of trips he’s taken with the kids solo this summer, I feel like he more than deserves a trip with his friends.

-Cooler weather. We’ve had a spate of weather in the low 80s and breezy and it’s been lovely. I’m not ready for autumn life happenings (The Hallowe’en stuff is out at Costco already!!) , but I sure am ready for autumn weather.

What We Ate:

Monday: Pasta with tomato and anchovy sauce. Tomatoes from the Husband’s garden. From the cookbook “Cook What You Have” about easy pantry meals.

Tuesday: Egg Curry. I heard about this on the podcast Didn’t I Just Feed you? I would not have thought of making a curry with hard boiled eggs, but this was really tasty and will go into our rotation. The Husband said, “I knew this was going to be good – it’s two of my favorite things: eggs and curry!”

Wednesday: Tomato Chirashi and tuna sushi bowls. The tomato chirashi bowl was from a Washington Post recipe that calls for marinading tomatoes in soy sauce, mirin, fish sauce so that the tomatoes sort of mimic raw fish. I made brown rice with vinegar and added edamame, cucumbers, carrots, and canned tuna and we topped with nori. It was really satisfying and the kids could pick and choose what they put in their bowl.

Thursday: Corn Dogs and bubble tea. We met up with the Husband after work at a Korean Corndog place in the mall for Happy Hour, which turned out to be not a great food choice, but very tasty.

Friday: Pizza (carry out) and Frozen. It was the 3 year old’s turn ot pick the movie.

Satureday: Pizza (again) at a birthday party.

Sunday: Totellini with sausage and red sauce. Pantry dinner after we got home from Longwood Gardens. I wanted something simple and quick and this was it.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Countdown to end of summer!

Last week, I had one day of work to wrap up things in the office and archive paperwork, and then I was home the rest of the week with the two older kids. The youngest still went to daycare. It was a very full and frustrating week. I felt like I was still catching up on sleep, trying to get my body back on a regular sleep schedule after the week of tech – there were a lot of late nights – my own fault! Revenge bedtime procrastination was definitely in play. And then trying to do fun and productive things. Things definitely skewed fun over than productive. The house definitely becomes a pit much faster when we are all home during the day- clothes, toys, books, food, dishes – it all piles up. And then it’s physically exhausting to be constantly cleaning and mentally/emotionally exhausting to constantly nag the kids to keep things picked up. We do need to think of better systems.

We did have a family meeting about the laundry last week and the kids decided that laundry would be put away when they get into pjs. We aren’t super great about enforcing routine clean up habits. I think this is also because the Husband and I are very different about this – he likes to constantly clean and I like to clean all the one go at the end of the night. So no wonder the kids are getting mixed messages about how to maintain a baseline level of tidiness. I’m hoping getting their input in when the laundry gets put away will help it actually get done.

Something I Learned this Week:
–Nothing draws a kid to step on your toes like your toes being broken It is amazing. It is as if a broken toe exudes a magnetic force that just draws kids (or at least my kids) to step on it. On Sunday, a week ago, I walked into a door frame. I don’t really think I broke my baby toe, but it hurt like a bejeezus for a few days. I have many friends who have broken toes and the verdict was if it wasn’t blue and sticking out sideways it is probably fine. Then a few hours later, I tripped while walking up our exterior back steps and badly stubbed my big toe on the opposite foot – I thought I was going to lose a toenail, but it has stayed in tact so far. I never noticed how much my kids step on my toes until my toes are in excruciating pain. What is with that? Do they have some kind of hidden talent for hurting me where it hurts the most? And they don’t even realize. This is the conversation, repeated many many many times:
Me: Don’t step on my toe!
Child: Ooops! Sorry! I didn’t know your toe was there!
Also – this is what gets me – don’t you notice when you are standing on something? Or is this a princess and the pea situation where only the most sensitive will notice the toe sized lump under their foot??
Okay – my toes seem fine now. A little tender still, but I’ve been walking on it an everything. Haven’t been running, but that is probably more life and having the kids at home than really about the toe.

Fourt Signs of Late Summer:

School supply shopping. While the 6 year old’s school sent a school supply list, there was nothing form the middle school. At first I thought, “Wait, maybe no one expects middle schooler to have school supplies?” If I thought elementary school was a huge information vacuum compared to daycare, it seems like middle school is a black hole. (Is that even an appropriate analogy? I’m not an astrophysicist.) The 11 year old had an ice cream social for incoming sixth graders. We got to the school and there was a sign that said, “Come back and pick up your kids at 1:30pm.” What? I just send them in there? At 1:30pm I came back and the Assistant Principal was out front reminding us of the practice mini day coming up. “Are parents supposed to come to that?” I asked.

“No! No! You just send them to us. They need to get used to figuring it out on their own,” was the reply.

Oh my. Okay.

Anyhow, I hadn’t received a school supply list and I texted a friend with a high schooler to ask, “Do they still get school supply lists in middle school?” I mean maybe this was just one of those things that I don’t know since I’ve never had a middle schooler. Turns out there is a list of sorts. My friend forwarded me the email that was sent via the PTA listerv. Another thing I have to get on. So list in hand we went to Staples.

I love school supplies. While I appreciate the efficiency of schools that create a lump package through some retailer, I do love actually going and wandering the aisles of Staples. Moreso than my kids. They do not appreciate the way I look at every single pen, or Post-It or compare notebooks and binders. They were definitely done with the process before I was. Sigh.

We also got a new back pack for the 11 year old. I figured since she was off to middle school, she needed a new sturdy backpack. She’s had the Lands End backpacks for most of elementary school, but I’ve found that they don’t hold up really well since she is very rough on them. (In kindergarten she had a backpack from Target with a some licensed character on it – I can’t remember what. It was very pink and shiny. That did not last even one year. A friend of mine says if her kids want character backpacks from Target, she always buys two because then when it rips halfway through the school year, she’s prepared.) The 6 year old has an L.L. Bean backpack – and those are nice and sturdy; I’ve had my L.L. Bean backpack since college. But the L.L. Bean backpacks don’t have the sternum clip and the 11 year old really needs something with a sternum clip since she will be walking and maybe biking to school. Someone had suggested that we check out REI for a backpack, and indeed that was where we found her a backpack – The North Face Borealis – lots of pockets, tough material, laptop sleeve, and most importantly a sternum clip. More than I had expected to pay for a backpack, but I think it will really hold up and actually it will be great for travelling adventures too. The patterns aren’t as exciting as Lands End, but I think it’s a nice colour that will grow with her, and she’ll hopefully like it just as much in three years as she does now.

Things from the garden. I’ve been in hard core kitchen nesting phase, where I just make things in the kitchen – It’s probably a result of having not really had any good kitchen puttering time yet this summer. I normally love spending time in the kitchen, whether it’s just cooking dinner, or baking, or making kitchen experiments. The Husband has been growing cucumbers and tomatoes (among other things). He is the kind of gardener that loves to grow things, but doesn’t always harvest it in time. A lot of it is over ripe, not really suitable for eating raw, so I’ve been making other things with it. The cucumber has been made into cucumber agua fresca, cucumber lemonade and cucumber yogurt soup. This latter is not really something I usually am partial to. I like my soup to be hot and chunky with texture and variety. But a friend suggested a cold cucumber curry soup, and I used this recipe as a basis, except using curry powder instead of dill. It was very tasty, but in my mind cold soup is kind of like a savory smoothie – which, once I phrased it to myself like that, it was a very nice snack to have on a very hot day.

The tomatoes I have made into tomato sauce. No recipe – just chopped two large bowls of tomatoes, mixed with a sliced onion or two, lots of garlic (like half a bulb), olive oil, salt. Roasted at 450 for an hour. Let cool, then run through the food mill. The food mill is one of those single function tools which I use maybe twice a year, but which does its one job oh so well.

It feels really satisfying and good to be messing around in the kitchen again.

Summer Day Trip. We also went to see my friend at her new house over on the southern tip of Maryland – it took about two hours to get there. She has a pool and lives on a cove with a dock on said cove. It was just a lovely relaxing day – we swam in her pool, we walked to the dock and saw lots of fish and jelly fish. We even saw a crab swimming. I’d never seen a crab swim before – it swims sideways, paddling furiously all its legs. My friend grilled us a tasty dinner, with a fantastic German potato salad on the side (note to self, get her recipe), and then we went to visit her neighbor who had sheep. I don’t know if I could live so far from the city all the time, but our quiet, calm, and nature filled day with my friend certainly made a case for it.

The County Agricultural Fair. We went to the County fair one day. We saw animals – rabbits, chickens, turkeys, cows. There was a cow giving birth; we stayed to watch the water break then the lady in charge said it might be another hour until the calf was born so we didn’t stay for that. (I did see a calf being born one year – it was kind of amazing. One moment there was one cow, the next moment, all the a whoosh, there was a baby cow, walking and everything.).

We did go check out some of the entertainment, but I found the escape artist kind of cringe-y and chauvinist. He had this act where an audience member puts him in a strait jacket, and I was just really uncomfortable with his double entendres the whole time. I’m sure he’s someone who does the fair circuit, but I would be glad never to see him again.

And then went to the Midway and we rode rides and ate fair food. Our fair feels quite standard and modest. We probably have the same rides and food booths and over priced lemonade that you would see at any other county fair. But even still, it’s a good time. The 11 year old and I like riding rides – I don’t have the courage to do the upside down ones; I’m always afraid that my glasses will fall off. But I like the big swings and the twirly rides and the roller coasters, though there aren’t really roller coasters at the fair. I do not like bumper cars. This year we got the unlimited ride wristbands for the 11 year old and me. In past years I only got a limited number of tickets, but I figured that the oldest is of an age where it makes more sense to get the wrist bands. We got the little kids enough tickets to ride a few rides. The Husband does not like rides, but he is a stellar bag holder and child watcher. The six year old only wanted slow rides and the 3 year old wanted fast rides. She was too small to ride the super fast rides, but we found a couple that were quite zippy for her and she had fun.

The 11 year old said to me at one point that a good ride had to be just scary enough to be fun, which I thought was an interesting metric. Around 7:30pm, the husband took the two little kids home and I stayed and rode rides with the 11 year old, which was nice because we don’t often get just mommy/daughter time since the little kids take a lot of attention.

On the shuttle back to the parking lot we talked to a lady who grew up showing cows at this fair. “You saw the animals, right?” she said to us, “You don’t come to the fair just to ride the rides, right?” I do wish we had spent more time with the animals, but we arrived at 3:30pm, and by then a lot of the animal stuff was winding down. Next year, I think we’ll plan to arrive earlier.

Now I truly understand the term “Sheep eyes”.

Ice Cream Adventures – We haven’t had as many ice cream adventures as we usually do. My how work gets in the way of fun! But last weekend we had no plans so we got in the car and drove to Prigel Family Creamery. On the way, we played this game:

It was a lot of fun – we all laughed so hard. Highly recommend. One of my favorite cards: “Is the Driver driving with just one hand on the wheel? He loses a point.” Hilariously on the way home, the 3 year old fell asleep and still managed to score three points.

In between we had a very relaxed visit to the Prigel Family Creamery. We first visited this place as part of the Maryland Ice Cream Trail – a list of ten or so dairies in Maryland where you could get ice cream. Visit all ten and get entered to win a prize. That first year we went to seven of them. This dairy is a nice outing because you can get sandwiches and meat and cheese plates, and there are cows – we can go, get lunch, eat it while watching the cows, and then get ice cream. I’m glad that we went because it turns out they are shutting down their sandwich counter and we were there on the last day. We ordered lunch then played some CodeNames – one of our new favorite games- then had ice cream. I had lemon ice cream, the six year old had strawberry (I think my favorite of all the cones), the three year old had cookies and cream and the 11 year old had a vanilla milkshakes with cookie dough chunks. I was a little annoyed when she thew out most of the cookie dough chunks – she said they were too big. I was probably disproportionately irked at her for this, but food waste annoys me and I would have eaten them if she had asked around. Oh well, lesson for next time.

The kids picked rocks from the parking lot to keep our cards from blowing away. I like Code Names because you don’t have to be able to read to play so all the kids can participate.

All in all, some good summer adventures for these last few days. Also not as much life admin as I would like – I still feel very behind. But I guess when we look back on the last weeks of August 2023 I want to remember the time I spent with my friends and family and the food and the sunshine, not the time I spent paying the bills. (Though that is important too.)

Grateful For:
-A full summer of work. I haven’t worked all summer in a very long time, so I’m grateful I got to do that this year.

-Friends. Now that I have my evenings back, we’ve started to make plans and see friends. One day we went to Comet Ping Pong and had pizza and played ping pong. One evening a friend came over for dinner, and she brough dessert and marinated anchovies (the way to my heart!). The past week felt very social, but that certainly fills up one my buckets too.

-Friends who cut hair. The 11 year old needed her hair trimmed – seeing as how she wants to keep it long I just wanted to take a few inches off the bottom so that the ends could stay healthy. I texted my friend and asked if she could do it and she said yes! So we went over for dinner one night and my friend did a bathroom trim. Frugal and friendly! Win!

-Bose wireless speaker. The rear speakers on my car don’t work, which makes it hard for the kids riding in the back to hear whenever I play music/audiobooks. The husband had the idea that I should bring his wireless speaker on our drive to see my friend in Sothern Maryland and it worked really well. We listened to the audiobooks of How To Train Your Dragon – hilarious. Highly recommend.

-Our new lawnmower. The 11 year old ran our lawnmower into a stump in the backyard while mowing and pretty much killed it. The lawnmower, not the stump. The stump was dead already. She feels pretty terrible about it so I am practicing putting on my big girl parenting pants on and not getting angry at her. I mean, truth to tell, the Husband is the yard/garden person so I think he took it harder than I did, but even he was the one who told me not to yell at her. I’m trying to embrace the idea that there will be casualties of raising children (My husband’s favorite snow globe, for instance that got smashed last Christmas by toddler hands), and not flip out any time something gets ruined. Seriously there should be some kind of insurance for parents of children. At any rate, as part of our agreement to buy a new mower rather than hiring a lawncare service, I have agreed to mow the lawn every other time. (I think I used to mow maybe twice a summer) The Husband is letting me get away with not using the trimmer or the blower. I just have to mow. The lawn is tiny. It takes about 45 minutes for me. Anyhow, we got a new mower. It’s battery powered. (Our previous one was gas.) It actually makes mowing not feel like an uphill struggle. It’s so quiet that I’m afraid that I’ll forget that it is actually quite dangerous. Something about the ear splitting noise of our gas mower reminded me every moment that I was one absent minded moment from losing a finger or toe. I wouldn’t say I’m looking forward to mowing now, but I guess with our new mower, it does seem like less of an inconvenience than before.

Looking Forward To:
-Having time back to myself after the kids are in school. I haven’t been exercising – first because the kids have been home and I can’t leave the six year old home by himself, then there was the whole smashed toe incident. I did manage a few yoga sessions, but I haven’t been running.
– A trip to Longwood Gardens. We haven’t been all summer, so we’re going to take a day and go before school starts. I’m looking forward to seeing the fountains and the flowers and the trees and eating the mushroom soup.
-Season Two of the Gilded Age! The trailer just dropped – I love a good soapy costume drama. I binged the first season earlier this year – it was my “watch while I do the dishes” temptation bundle. Second season starts end of October. Knowing me, I probably won’t get around to watching it until next spring – I’m horrible at keeping up with tv shows – but just knowing that there is a second season coming is very exciting for me. And I hear that there will be a dueling opera company rivalry as a plot point. Oooh!

What We Ate:

Saturday: Went out for Mexican food at Guapo’s with my sister in law and her family. I had the ceviche sampler plate. I do love ceviche. This was the last day we saw my sister in law’s family before they went back to the Netherlands (which reminds me – I still have to finish those trip recaps!)

Sunday: Grilled salmon and veggies. I did the veggies (onions, peppers, zucchini) on skewers -which isn’t something I usually do because for some reason I thought they don’t cook as well on skewers, but turns out they turn out great. I might be changing up my grilled veggie game now.

Monday: Comet Ping Pong with friends.

Tuesday: Cold Mapo Tofu, stir fried green beans w/ fired tofu, and cucumber salad, brown rice on the side. There was a great collection of recipes in the Washington Post of no-cook meals and the tofu was one of them. Basically it’s marinated silken tofu. It was very tasty, but I think I would like to use soft tofu next time; I don’t think I’m much of a silken tofu fan.

Wednesday: Snack dinner. Both the Husband and the 11 year old had plans this evening so I took the two little kids to the pool. We had crackers and cheese and fruit and whatever else I could pull from the fridge.

Thursday: Fair food. I had the grilled corn. I think the kids had corn dogs and sausages. There were also fries and funnel cake and lemonade. I’m kicking myself because I threw out my lemonade cup and I should have kept it because refills are definitely cheaper than getting a new one. Oh well, lessons for next time.

Friday: Dinner at my friend’s house in Southern Maryland.

Saturday: Pizza (Husband made) and move night. We watched the first How to Train Your Dragon movie. I thought it was quite good, but very different from the book.

Sunday: impromptu dinner at friend’s house – wings, hotdogs, salad, corn. Perfect casual get together.

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Tech/Opening/Closing

Another show closed. Well there was only one performance, so it opened and closed on the same night. Someone backstage was wishing people “Happy Clopening!” This was unlike any tech period I’d ever done before. First of all, we had fewer onstage rehearsals than I’m used to, so everything felt rather ambitious and there was no day off before closing so I definitely had to pace myself a little bit. But the biggest adjustment for me is that because it is an outdoor venue, we had all our lighting sessions at night, after the evening rehearsal. It doesn’t do much good to write light cues during the day with bright sunlight everywhere. So for three days, we would rehearse until 11 or 11:30pm, the cast would go home, and then we would have a little break and then come back and light from 12:00 midnight until 2:30am. Go home, sleep, and come back the next afternoon. It’s funny how coming back to work at 2 or 3:00pm can feel just like arriving to work at 10am – the same kind of groggy, anticipatory energy as you walk in the door for the first time, chai in hand.

I guess many outdoor opera companies do this over night tech session, but it was my first time experiencing it. Thankfully the company provided us with food after the evening rehearsal and before the midnight tech session. As the big boss said, “It’s easier to work the third shift with a full belly.” I know some jobs, particularly in the for profit sector, the company providing food, or being able to expense food, is a given, but it’s not that way where I work, so I’m always grateful when we are included in company provided meals.

Anyhow, the show is now closed, farewells have been said and the summer opera season is over or me. On to the next.

Tech week stats-
Average Steps / day, over 4 days of tech: 18, 623
Average flights climbed/day: 23. The set had two levels, rather high ones actually. There was one staircase that took you up 30 feet in the air.

Here is the view from the top:

Some other fun tech week photos:

Paperwork – I did the wardrobe/wigs running paperwork, which requires a lot of time math to figure out how long someone has to change their costume.

The swanky outdoor patio off of the space we used for our office. The hammock was wet for most of the week, so I did not get to relax on it as I wanted. I might have taken a ten minute nap in those chairs at one point, though.

Our pretty pretty set. One night only then into the dumpster. Theatre is so ephemeral.

Our fabulous interns lightwalking at 2am.

The tower opens up to reveal these mirrored walls:

The view of the theatre as you drive up – how lucky to work in such a beautiful space!

Also – on a sartorial note – On Opening Night, I saw several ladies in these really elegant caftans. Now I’m at a stage where “cocktail attire” sounds completely uncomfortable and unpleasant to me. Plus there is no longer anything in my closet that might pass for cocktails attire. And heels… forget about it. So when I saw several ladies so elegant and cool looking in soft billowy caftans, I thought… “Am I old enough – and poised enough — to be able to pull that off?” and now I am contemplating adding a beautiful elegant caftan to my wardrobe that might be opening night worthy. Something like:

or this;

Or this one is fun:

From Nieman Marcus – though definitely on the price-y side for me. But alos I appreciate the non-plunging neckline.

I’d have to figure out the heels situations though…. I feel like 75% of what makes something elegant is wearing heels.

The Husband took the kids out of town for three days to visit family, coinciding with the first few days of tech, which was extremely nice. For the second time this summer, I had the house to myself, though this time I was in the theatre for much of the the time so I didn’t get to indulge in my alone time as much as earlier this summer.

My first evening with an empty house, though I had a long date with a friend. It was blazingly hot so she wandered if we could do something in the air conditioning.

So I suggested ice skating. I had, in fact, just been at the ice rink that morning with the kids for their lesson and the 50 degree arena was refreshing. My friend thought it was a brilliant idea, so we went and spent two hours gliding lazy laps around the rink. Then we went for dumplings at my favorite dumpling house. Since the last time I was there the restaurant has expanded into the space next door to become some kind of karaoke bar, and walking in the hip new interior was a bit of a shock. This is the dumpling house that the Husband used to eat at every Friday for lunch when his office was a few blocks away. We used to come with our teeny tiny babies and there is one waitress who would hold our babies and walk around with them so that we could eat. When my friend and I walked in, the waitress asked me, “Where are the kids?”

“My Husband took them out of town,” I said.

“Vacation for you!” She said.

When she took our order, she said, “We have special vegetables today!” Apparently during the summer she grows vegetables in her back yard and then brings them in to the restaurant for them to cook and serve. She even pulled out her phone to show us pictures of her green green plots of land. It was very impressive. “In the Summer we are Farm to Table too!” she laughed. She was explaining what vegetables she brought in today and said we should try one of the dishes, one of which was a shrimp dish. The translation app translated the name of the vegetable as “loofah”. And indeed it was – it was kind of like a spongy cross between a cucumber and a zucchini. Very tasty. The cucumbers in our cucumber salad were also from her garden and they were the lightest crunchiest cucumbers I had ever tasted.

After dinner we walked over to a dessert place called Kyoto Matcha that I had wanted to try for a while. They have a lot of Matcha based desserts, including a “blanket cake” that looks exactly like it sounds – a swaddle of dessert. I got a Kyoto Cream Roll Cake which had a slightly salty cream filling. My friend go the red bean blanket cake – both were really delicious. We got our cake and sat in the plaza and ate cake and talked about life and such until it got late and then we went home. It was so nice to spend time with my friend, one on one, without the ids around, even though she is always the best with my kids.

Things that made life fun last week or so:
-Getting the Wordle in one! I mean statistically it’s bound to happen since I use the same first word, but still it was pretty fun when all the squares turned green the first go around. Though I have to admit it is not as satisfying as getting it in six or three – three because it makes me feel smart and six because it makes me feel lucky. Now I have to find a new first word. Ironically, the weekend thread on Ask A Manager had a threadjack on Wordle first words – some good options. I liked poser and pinky. Stare seems to be a common one too.

-Before they left for the lake, the two older kids had their Theatre Camp performances. It was a harrowing week for camp because the storm the previous weekend had done a lot of damage to the park where they originally had camp, so they had to change locations. The new location was not as convenient for me, but some of the camps at the park had to cancel so I’m glad our camp was able to relocate. Each child was in a different show and it was so fun to see them up on stage – saying lines, singing, dancing, and having a good time. My favorite moment was when the six year old, playing one of the children in a Pied Piper of Hamlin inspired story had to be a frozen statue – he was such a great frozen statue. The little guy is surprisingly good at standing still and staring off into space. Theatre camp is expensive, but I think the kids get so much out of it, so I’m glad we can afford to send them.

-While waiting for the kids’ camp performance to start, I had enough time to take a very muddy run on a nearby trail, where I met this little guy:

-Just down the road from the new camp location is a produce stand. I stopped by one day because they had peaches and peaches are one of my favorite things about summer. “Do you take credit cards?” I asked the guy at the register.
“We only take cash, check, or IOU,” he replied.
I must have given him a funny look, because he said, “My boss has been here for thirty years every summer and it’s the way he does things. If anyone doesn’t have the money, we let them have what they want and tell them to come by when they have the money.”
“That seems so odd!” I said.
“Yeah, it’s not how people do business these days, but it works for us.”

So he sent me on my way with six peaches, and the next day, I came back with cash and bought another six peaches. So I guess it does work out okay for everyone somehow.

Grateful For: Tech Week Edition:

-Water, ice, and Gatorade and my insulated water bottle. Like I mentioned – we were at an outdoor venue. It was in the high 80s and oh so humid last week. The venue provided us with huge coolers of ice and bottled water as well as water coolers with both ice water and room temperature water. During the performance there was Gatorade as well. I’m not a Gatorade person, but I tell you, at intermission after being on my feet since 6pm, and sweating profusely, I drank a bottle and felt better. I had brought my black blazer to wear because I do believe in wearing long sleeves backstage, especially since the venue was so big that there were large swaths of the audience who could see backstage from where they sat. But I soon gave up on the blazer and just wore it when I was standing close in the wings. I also started googling “Black Linen Blazer”. My insulated Kleen Kanteen also got such a lot of use. So glad I bought a straw lid for it. I was having a conversation with my sister in law who lives in Amsterdam about water and she said, “Oh we don’t drink ice water in Europe; I’t sso American.” And I thought with sad dismay, “But ice water on a hot day is one of the great pleasures in life!” She is missing out, I tell you.

-Fans. There were giant fans everywhere backstage. I definitely adjusted my traffic patterns and took the opportunity to walk by them any chance I got.

-The Husband taking the kids away for a few days. Being at the theatre until 2:30am is a lot more manageable when I don’t have to get up at 7:00am to get the kids to camp/school. I did have to get the youngest one to school on the last two days of tech, but the Husband made sure that they didn’t wake me up too early. There was one morning when a child walked in and said, “It’s 8:00 – why are you still in bed? Are you okay?” then she ran downstairs in a panic to tell the Husband.

-2:30am traffic. Much lighter than 3:00pm traffic. Because the last thing I want to do when getting off work at 2:30am is sit in bumper to bumper traffic. So yeah, I’m glad there are only a few poor souls out of the Capital Beltway in the pre-dawn hours. It did also have me wondering who these 2:30am on the beltway souls were. I’m sure there are many tales to be told there.

-The past three productions of Don Giovanni that I’ve done. This is my fourth production of Don Giovanni. (I think the show I’ve done the most is The Marriage of Figaro – I’ve done six of those – there was a period of life when I did a Figaro every year. Good thing it’s my favorite opera.) Anyhow, every production is different, yet a lot is still the same. A lot of the music, even with cuts, is the same. The reason I’m glad for having done so many Giovannis is that I am very familiar with the music. And the score is very heavy – it’s like four hundred pages or something like that, plus it’s in a binder with all my other show running paperwork. (Some people just keep their scores in a separate binder which makes things lighter, but I like having things all together. I have colleagues who are starting to to work off tablets. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.) Normally I carry my score with me around while I’m running the show, periodically parking it on a music stand. (This is actually somewhat controversial. Some people think you should always have your score with you. Some people think you should leave it on the music stand and run around unencumbered. I fall somewhere in between but do tend to carry it around a lot. But over all, I’m a “You do you” kind of person.) With a 400 page score, this gets very tiring. It wasn’t that our production was that busy, but with the heat, I was running water to singers practically every time they came off stage. Juggling five water bottles, a towel for wiping sweat plus a 400 page score was kind of ridiculous. So I just left my score on my music stand for most of the show. And the reason I felt like I could do this was because I had done three previous productions and I knew approximately how much time I had between cues. I didn’t have to have the music with me to know where I was in the show. I knew that the start of this aria meant I had three minutes to get to this wing to cue these singers onstage. I knew that the repeat of the A section of this line meant that that singer had two minutes left in their costume change. I mean even with a new score I have the timings written and and I could figure it out and learn the rhythms, but there is something easier about not having to look it up at all.
So yeah, I’m grateful for those three previous productions of of Giovanni and for being able to run around backstage in the summer heat without having to lug my 400 page score with me.

-And as always, my amazing colleagues who are so good at what they do and who makes me laugh and keep my spirits up even at 2:30am. This job is so much harder when I don’t get along with the people I work with.

Looking Forward To:

-The start of School! There is back to school shopping to do and a few more days to wring out all the summer we can before getting back into the school year routine. I feel like I need to get the kids back on a school sleep schedule. They’ve all been staying up til 9:00p/9:30p even 10pm, and waking up around 7:30pm. Well except the 3 year old who wakes up at 6:30am no matter what time she goes to bed. The oldest will be starting middle school, which starts at 8:15am, so that will also be a big adjustment getting out of the house an hour earlier. She has a practice half day coming up, so we’ll see how that goes. Also – not sure how she she is getting to school. Bus is only provided if you live 1.2 miles from school and we live 1.1 miles. So walk, or maybe bike? It feels a little far to walk, but maybe not. There is one pretty busy road to cross and no stop light, only a cross walk, unless you walk two blocks up or down, which adds about five minutes to the walk. I do worry because we live next to the hospital so there is a lot of traffic on that road. But also I don’t have time to walk with her or drive her myself since I have to get the other kids to school (plus our neighbor’s kids). Maybe the first week, I can walk with her to the busy street and make sure she gets across safely. New year, new challenges!

-Also on that note: getting back to routines. I feel like I’m behind in everything – laundry, house chores, life chores, kids activity sign up. I’m looking forward to having time to think things through.

-Going to visit a friend at her house on the shore.

-Going to the County Fair! Rides! Fried Food! Animals!

– Getting my passport renewed. This is one of those “Looking forward to checking off the to do list” tasks. The Husband was going through our box of documents and said, “Hey your passport is about to expire.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “I put a calendar reminder to renew it three months out.”
“Oooookay,” he said.
So I pull it out and looked at it. Friends, it expires NEXT MONTH.
Oops. I thought I had put a calendar reminder to renew my passport this year, but turns out that was a calendar reminder to renew my daughter’s passport. So it must be done and soon. I’m glad I didn’t have any international trips planned. And hope that I won’t have to flee the country any time soon. Also I now need to find one day with perfect hair to have my picture taken.

-Reading this book:

It’s a book that feels quite personal to me and I can’t put it down. All my youthful and middle-age insecurities as an Ivy League student/graduate are right here in every chapter.

What we Ate: We ate pizza multiple times this week, and it’s not even counting the number of times the Husband and kids ate it while visiting his sister. Pizza just seems like the easiest options for these group meals, though I do want to grow my ideas of “food to feed multiple people and kids” beyond the many variations of cheese and carbs (pizza, mac n cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas…) Anyone have any other go-to feeds a crowd with kids ideas?

Monday: Miso Tofu, Broccoli and Udon noodles. There was leftover miso sauce from something the Husband made the week before, so I threw it on tofu, baked it and had broccoli and noodles with it. vegan.

Tuesday: Eggs, The Husband cooked since I was at work.

Wednesday: Pasta and Turkey meatballs. The Husband’s sister was in town and this was an easy meal to throw in the InstantPot. Pasta and sauce cooked separately to accommodate vegetarians. I made a double batch of meatballs and froze them for future me. ( I actually made these for Wednesday, but SIL’s plans changed so I just froze the meatballs and the Husband put them in the IP – I’m so proud of him because he usually avoids the IP…)

Thursday; Pizza take out. We were going to go to the pool, but it got really chilly and rainy so we ordered pizza and ate at home with my Sister In law and her family.

Friday: Pizza and movie night. I think they watched the Lego movie.

Saturday: Dumplings and green beans.

Sunday: Family was gone, and I went to the Dumpling House with my friend.

Monday: Leftovers. Start of single lady eating.

Tuesday – Friday: Made a big pot of mujadara for Tech Week and ate a combination of that and leftovers for the rest of the week. I used this recipe from Feasting at Home.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Dishes

A shady basketball court – on of my grateful things lately.

Welp the dishwasher was broken for much of last week. The last day my brother and his in laws were in town, right after I cooked dinner for 12 people, it decided to not turn on, after the Husband had loaded 12 people’s worth of dishes into it. For a while, we limped along and washed dishes by hand, but eventually we gave up and started eating on paper plates. The Husband had given me a hard time a couple months ago when I bought the Costco sized pack of Chinet for a party. Well, who’s laughing now?

Growing up, we never had a dishwasher. My mother taught me to wash dishes at an early age. I also learned how to wash dishes in Home Ec. Our Home Ec teacher taught us the two sink method – you fill one sink with soapy water, and wash in that sink and then rinse in the other sink. We have only one sink in our kitchen so I fill a bowl with soapy water to wash. The home ec teacher did say that if you only had one sink to fill that sink with soapy water and then rinse under a light trickle of water to prevent diluting the soapy water too much. But we don’t have a sink stopper hence the “fill another bowl” method.

The first time we moved into a house with a dishwasher, I was thirteen. My parents lived in that house for probably twenty years and I don’t think they ever used the dishwasher to wash dishes. They did use it to store dishes, however, so it’s not as if it went completely unused.

Anyhow I think dishwashers are the norm now. I certainly use it to wash the majority of my dishes. Even the week that the family was away and I was all on my own – I still amassed dishes in the dishwasher until there was a full load to run.

But man, this past week or so of being without a dishwasher was tough… A family of 5 generates a lot of dishes, even when we are all out of the house for the majority of the day. Things I realized when we were doing all the dishes by hand:
1) It’s not just about the washing, it’s about the drying too. We don’t have a dish rack, just one of those super absorbent mats on which we put clean, drippy dishes. This was actually a huge disagreement between me and the Husband early in our marriage. He grew up where everything was put in the dishwasher and the counters were kept clear. I grew up without a dishwasher and the dishes just drained in the drying rack on the counter. Anyhow, I couldn’t convince him of the need for a drying rack so we just use drying mats now. Which is fine…. until you have a ga-billion dishes to do all the time and they don’t all fit on the mat. So you have to dry them and put them away so that there is room on the mat for all the other dishes coming down the pipeline. This is partly why it takes so long to get through the dishes. Eventually we realized this and someone always had drying duty during our evening clean up time. I guess I never really understood the phrase, “I wash, you dry” until now. (Although I just had a friend suggest that we should have put the dishes in the non-working dishwasher to dry, clearing off counter space. That’s brilliant. Must remember for next time.)

2) Another dish decision – wash now or wash later? I suppose this is also a decision when the dishwasher is working, but it seems like a bigger decision when hand washing dishes looms in one’s future. Wash everything as I go, after each meal, each snack, each packed lunch? Or let it sit in a pile and do it all in one go? I am definitely a “accumulate and do it all in one go” type of person. But when it’s just one fork or plate, it’s just as easy to put it straight into the dishwasher.

Anyhow, the dishwasher is now fixed, after having one mis-scheduled appointment, for which I sat at home and no one ever arrived….

The other exciting weekend happening was that we lost power for six hours on a Saturday night. A storm came through fast and furious and left huge swaths of the DC area without power. So we decided to go out to eat. The restaurant was bustling and it took a while to get us our food, but we were in no rush to go home and sit in our dark, warm, stuffy house. When we got home, we went for a walk, and I tried to capture the amazing lightning in the sky, though I fail:

That light behind the trees is lightning.

The Sunday after that was such a perfectly chill day. We had waffles in the morning and then spent some time tidying. Then we went to a park for a couple hours, then the two little kids had skating lessons. Then we went grocery shopping and then came home. It was such a nice combination of chores and low key fun stuff None of our adventures were huge or novel – they were familiar and routine. Afterwards, I thought, “If every day could be like today, that would be awesome!”

Other nice things in my life lately:

-Going to the opera and going to the theatre. I went to watch a rehearsal of the other opera that my current company is putting on. It was a beautiful production with some really wonderful performances. How awesome it is to just walk into the building next door and see an opera!
Then a couple days later, the Husband and 11 year old and I went to see The Play That Goes Wrong. The premise is that a group of people are putting on a play and onstage mishaps just keep happening – people keep missing lines, props are misplaced, the doors don’t work, the set falls apart…. I’ve written in the past about onstage mishaps that I’ve experienced… well this was two hours of onstage mishaps. It was side splittingly funny. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in the theatre. Part of the fun for me was that there was a Stage Manager character and his booth was actually in the house and seeing him do his job (or sometimes screw up his job) was was both nail biting and hilarious. I know some people go to the theatre expecting to be moved to devastation, and that’s what makes it a worthwhile experience, but I think we undersell how powerful joy and laughter can be in a theatre too.

That’s the “stage manger’s booth” on the left.

-One day, I had the afternoon off from work, so I picked up the three year old from school early, and took her to the pool. The pool was pretty empty at 1pm on a weekday afternoon; I think there was only one or two other families there. It was one of the days that was in the mid-nineties, so pool time, broken up by lots of snacks, was such a great way to spend a few hours. Having one on one time with the three year old was pretty great too. I’ve been feeling bad that she goes to day care while I have adventures with the other two kids, and I think she was feeling a little left out too.

Mommy daughter date – pool snacks and swimming on a 90 degree day.

-One day, I treated myself to a boba tea. My usual order of black tea, 25% sweetness (I usually get no sweetness, but this place didn’t have the option), with both boba and lychee jelly. Well, to my delight, the lychee jelly was shaped like stars. That little bit of whimsy really made my day.

– Discovering that there is a stylus on my computer and I can use it to draw on groundplans! My laptop can flip to be used as a tablet, which I knew. I did not know that there was a stylus tucked into the computer as well. I was poking around on the laptop one day, trying to figure out why I didn’t have any internet connection and I discovered a stylus tucked into the bottom.
This was a real game changer for me. One of my jobs is to make “minis” for our books. A mini is a small version of the set’s groundplan, where we write down staging notes. Often time (these days), I get a PDF version of the groundplan, but it usually has all sorts of writing and extraneous lines on it – like measurements and dimensions of various parts of the set, or indicators of where things are hung overhead. So I usually take a PDF snapshot capture of the groundplan and plop it into Paint and edit it there, erasing lines, adding lines, etc. . I am sure there are better ways to do this, but this is how I learned to clean up a mini. And I do all this manipulation on the computer with my mouse. Which can be frustratingly imprecise and tedious.
Well, the stylus has made this process as easy as drawing and erasing with a pencil – this last show, making the minis was so much easier.

A peek at my work life. It’s a round tower with stairs going around it and a table in the middle.

Now that I look at it, the groundplans kind of remind me of those pictures of “cowboys making eggs.”:

Grateful For:
– Dishwashing gloves. When I was younger, my mother always made me wear dishwashing gloves when I did the dishes. I thought they were cumbersome and silly so I once I was out of the house, I didn’t bother to wear them anymore. But then I got eczema on my hands and the dermatologist’s number one recommendation? To stop doing the dishes. His other recommendation was to get a platinum wedding ring. Well neither of those were going to happen. So I started wearing gloves to wash dishes and my hands stopped getting so chapped. Mom was right.
-Shady paths on which to run. Last week was so so so hot. Consistently in the 90s and humid too. The air was thick, the sun was bright. I am so grateful that there are several options for me to run on tree lined paths.
-Shady basketball courts. I’m glad that our local basketball court is surrounded by tall trees, so that it stays shady until at least noon. We’ve gone to shoot hoops early in the morning a few times to beat the heat, but being in the shade also makes it more enjoyable.
– The privilege of knowing some good people. I have two new-ish friends who are moving. One is moving overseas – her husband is in the foreign service. The other friend is moving across the country for work. I’m sad they are leaving because I don’t always find it easy to make friends and these two people were just souls I clicked with right away. One of them, I met at the school bus stop and our casual “Good morning!” over the school year became long walks and coffee and just standing at the bus stop chatting long after the bus had borne our kids off. I just feel so lucky to have been able to connect.
– A new to us bike. The friend who is moving across the country actually gave us her son’s bike as they couldn’t take it with them. Our six year old is finally learning to ride a bike with lots of help from every one!

Looking Forward To:
– More visits from family. My sister in law is in town. They have gone off to the western part of the state for a couple days and then will be back, so I will look forward to them
-Running. I don’t particularly like running – I find it hard and often tedious. I’m slow. It takes a lot of effort. It makes me hot and sweaty. But I do recognize that I feel better physically and more alert mentally when I do get a run in, so I make and effort to fit a run in when I can, often at work. This week, though, I noticed something – as I was packing my running shoes and running clothes into my tote bag to take to work, I was struck with a feeling of excitement. I wasn’t excited to do the actual running, but I was really happy that I could look forward to having the time to run and be outside. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. Just the simple act of packing my running stuff to take to work made the day seem like it was going to be okay – I could start the day hopeful that I could do something good for myself at some point.
– Tech! This week is tech. It’s always exciting and exhausting, taking a show from the rehearsal hall to the stage.

What We Ate : I think I’m behind in writing down our dinner – so here’s two weeks’ worth:

Monday: Fish taco, made by Husband

Tuesday: Sandwiches from The Sandwich Shop before the opera. They had a broccoli rabe and sun-dried tomato sandwich that was divine!

Wednesday: Pasta and Meatballs.

Thursday: Grilled Cheese and dumplings. Fast thrown together meal as we were trying to get to basketball.

Friday: My mom make three cup chicken and rice. A Taiwanese dish that is sooo tasty. Eaten in the theatre lobby before the show.

Saturday: Pizza and The Sandlot. A lovely lovely movie.

Sunday: Chinese food – a new to us place that we wanted to try out. The food was very very spicy. The Husband made milkshakes at home afterwards.

Monday: Zucchini tart and green salad. I always forget how easy a vegetable tart is when you have puff pastry in the freezer.

Tuesday: Greek Chicken and Cabbage Slaw. The Husband made this. I wish I had the recipe because it was really good.

Wednesday: Sauteed tofu and green beans.

Thursday: Lemon and brown rice chicken soup from Grains for Every Season. Really tasty and made for good leftover.

Friday: Pizza and Brooklyn 99. We had friends over and were going to watch Parent Trap but the kids were too busy playing so the grown ups watched six episodes of Brooklyn 99 instead. It’s a great show.

Saturday: The day the power went out.

Sunday: Zucchini Orzo – recipe from New York Times. Meh. The flavors were good, but it was mushy. I always like the idea of orzo, but the reality is always just disapointing.

Books Read – June 2023

Nothing like the first of the month to recap the books I read two months ago… I read more books than normal in June- thanks partly to my solo week at home! These past few months I’ve been really enjoying reading hard copy books. I read a lot via Libby on my phone, but there is something glorious to be about sitting with a book and turning the pages and flipping back and forth. I think the family being away really upped my “read in bed” lounge-y time.

The Chuckling Finger by Mabel Seeley – I was unfamiliar with Seeley, but I guess this American writer was hugely popular in the late 30s and 40s. She wrote mystery and crime novels. I picked up this book because I saw it recommended in The Week – can’t remember by whom. It’s like an Agatha Christie mystery with a touch more gothic in it. The story centers around Ann Gray, who has come to visit her cousin at her house on the lake. Mysterious accidents and eventually bodies ensue. It’s not the most well plotted of mysteries, but the heroine is plucky and smart and quite daring. Good if you’ve exhausted Agatha Christie and looking for something similar.

Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez – This 2017 novel by Canadian writer Hernandez centers around three children whose lives intertwine at a literacy center for low income families in a suburb outside of Toronto. Such a well crafted book, with story lines and characters flowing parallel and then intersecting in heart-wrenching ways. I think this novel really showed how hard it is to be a good parents when your basic needs are not being met – it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in novel form. Another central theme in this book is how children can simultaneously be so vulnerable yet so resilient. Even when their lives are hard, the characters manage to find friends and moments of joy. Reading about children who are abused or mistreated is always hard for me, yet Hernandez manages to treat all her characters with empathy and compassion, even when they are making really bad decisions.
Quotes I highlighted:
– “He lay his daughter on the bed face up, which made her snore so perfectly. She was the most beautiful sack of potatoes he ever did see.”
Yep, I’ve been there.
-“Sylvie’s dad was on that couch for months. Jonathon, like many here, was a sad combination of bad cards dealt and bad choices made.”
-“When you’re dead, you can’t tell someone, “You will change your ways,” because their ways won’t continue ever again.”

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – full cast audio production – I listened to this book on my commute and loved it. It was clever, funny, deeply human and vastly entertaining. I laughed out loud many many times. In this novel, as the world hurtles towards Armageddon an Angel and a Demon contemplate life and how much the actually enjoy Earth and don’t want it to end. I don’t always like full cast audio productions, but I found this one to be pretty great.

When a Rogue Meets his Match by Elizabeth Hoyt – This is the second book of Hoyt’s Greycourt series. It was … fine. Not particularly memorable – I just had to google the book to remind myself of the plot – it involves a forced marriage and then BIG SECRETS and then bad people. In my notes, I wrote, “The chemistry between the main characters was hot. Plotting was kind of awkward. I’m not sure I understand the motivation for all the intrigue.”

Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen – So I got to the end of When a Rogue Meets his Match and… there was another book appended to the back. I figured, may as well read it too. This novella is pretty much a vengeance plot. Guy says, “Help me get revenge.” Girl says, “What will you give me?” He says, “Whatever you want.” And they fall in the love in the meantime. Kelly Bowen is new to me. I thought her writing was very good, but I thought that the trauma and backstory of the mysterious hero was overwrought. I don’t mean to say trauma can’t be… well, traumatic, but just there was something almost sadistic about the amount of suffering he was made to go through here.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez: This novel is set at Tawawa House, a holiday resort in Ohio where white men would bring their enslaved Black mistresses. I was fascinated by this little slice of history – about what would motivate a man to bring his enslaved mistress to a resort and what it was like for the women to leave the plantation. The novel centers around a group of six slaves who meet at Tawawa House and the friendships they form and how their lives shift as they return to the resort year after year. Not going lie – this book was a challenging and gut-wrenching read, as one would expect of a book centered around the lives of a group of slaves. There is a lot of brutal sexual assault depicted as well as the mental and emotional and physical cruelty of slavery. Even still, I found this book gripping, as it followed the main character and her conflicted relationship with her master.

Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan – The title pretty much says it all. I found this book fascinating. Duncan delves into the history of how we categorize, track and find information in the books that we read. The book is a little dry, very witty and definitely nerdy. I mean there is a whole chapter about page numbers. I take page numbers for granted, but Duncan points out that page numbers were kind of useless before the printing press was invented then goes into the history of page numbers including what is one of the earliest surviving page numbers. Also, apparently indexes were controversial when they first became a thing because people thought that scholars would just read indexes rather than the real text. Also – did you know there was a society of professional indexers? I guess someone has to create an index, but it had never occurred to me before that that could be a profession. And in our world of AI and Google and e-book search functions – are professional indexers going to be obsolete? Duncan does provide an example of a computer generated index and a human generated index of this book, and one can certainly tell the difference. Indeed, the human generated index is one of the most amusingly tongue in cheek things I’ve read in a while. Definitely don’t skip reading the index of this book if you read it.

Unshuttered: Poems by Patricia Smith – Smith collects nineteenth century photographs of Black people and this volume of poetry was inspired by those photographs. Photographs of Black people of the time are very rare as Black people did not often have the money or freedom to have their portraits taken. For each photograph in this volume of poetry, Smith has written a poem that speculates as to whom the subject is. Both the pictures and the poems are haunting.

Slay by Brittney Morris – YA novel, our Mother Daughter book club book this month. I heard about this book on the podcast What Should I Read Next and immediately put it on my holds list from the library. This novel centers around 17 year old Kiera who has developed a video game that only Black people can play – the worlds and characters and superpowers were all created with the Black experience in mind. No one knows that she is behind this hugely popular game and when a teenager is killed over the game, Kiera has to decide how to handle the public scrutiny and accusations of “anti-white discrimination” that the game starts to get all while. I thought this was a very thought provoking book – Morris speaks more eloquently about the need for safe spaces and for the difficulty of being unable to assert your own racial identity than any piece of non-fiction I’ve read. At the same time, the book isn’t preachy or didactic – all these thorny issues are wrapped up in a well plotted novel that moves with momentum. I really enjoyed this book. The 11 year old did as well.

On my proverbial night stand:
Wild Genius of the Moors – Still reading about the Brontes. The past couple chapters have had so. much. death. Sad sad times.

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Sharon Messenger: Mother daughter book club book. My daughter suggested this one. She is obsessed with this series about a girl who discovers she has magical powers and leaves her known family and earth.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – as part of Engie’s blogger book club. I’ve never read this book before and am finding it beautiful in its details of time, place, and character.

My Darkest Prayer by S.A. Cosby – I loved his novel Razorblade Tears. This is one of his first efforts and while it is a little rough around the edges, I’m enjoying the prose very much.

What are you reading?