September 2026 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Soggy soggy week

Well that was a very full weekend! The weekend started Friday with a trip to Toby’s Dinner Theatre, and it was so much fun! We went to see Summer, a juke-box musical about Disco Queen Donna Summers. Dinner Theatre and Juke Box musicals aren’t usually something on my radar, but a friend of ours plays in the pit, and he got us a ticket discount, so we decided to take the whole family (including my parents). I’d never been to Toby’s before, but my work BFF was telling me that she went every year with her family and she couldn’t believe it was still around. The particular dinner theatre is performed with the audience sitting on all sides. When you walk into the space, there are different levels with dinner tables and chairs set up and a buffet and salad bar on the ground level. (And an ice cream bar in the lobby!) At around 7:15pm, people started clearing away the buffet and salad bar, sweeping and mopping the floor, clearing the tables, etc. And at 7:55pm the show started in the space that previously was the buffet area.

a plate of salad sitting next to a program. The program reads Toby's dinner theatre. Summer: The Donne Summer Musical. — Salad and rolls and theatre program.

As we are waiting for the the show start there is a host who gives the standard safety announcement and then gives shout outs. He goes around and calls out all the birthdays and anniversaries that are being celebrated that night and has a whole patter routine with the celebrants. The patter was hilarious and heartwarming and he always ended by wishing each person, “Good life, good laughter.” We were there to celebrate both our newly minted 7 year old, but also my parent’s anniversary. (Actually, their birthday too! They have the same birthday and they got married on that date.) I had never done the math, so I was a little shocked when my father told the host that they had been married for 53 years. Fifty-three! Wow. Good life, and good laughter, indeed.

And then the show really began. One of the fun things about dinner theatre is that the waiters who serve you dinner before the show are the actors onstage during the show. To be honest, it was a little jarring at first to see the guy who brought us our drinks an hour before, now onstage singing and dancing. We did get a little preview because he brought the 7 year old a special dessert and sand Happy Birthday to her. At intermission, the performers threw on bathrobes over their costumes and brought us our intermission drinks and the bill. I think, though, that’s part of the family feel of Toby’s Dinner Theater – the folksy humor, the “all hands on deck” feel of how the place operates. Everyone is working very very hard to make sure the patrons have a good time.

I thought the show was really well done – the space is small and in the round so it felt very immersive. (The theatre is really not that big – and in fact, it is going to be torn down at the end of the year because they are opening a new facility next door come 2027. ) The singing and dancing was full of energy and you could see everything super close because of the layout of the theatre. I think I’ve always thought of dinner theatre as cheesy and never thought about going, but you know what… I was wrong. Of course it might be cheesy, but it’s a really good time.

Saturday morning was activity free – the 14 year old’s voice teacher was out of town, and the 7 year old’s gymnastics class is cancelled whenever there is a home football game because the gym is on the campus of the University of Maryland. I guess on paper that would bring us a bit of breathing room to start the weekend, but after our weekly family meeting, it felt like I spent the rest of the morning with laundry, chores, and various tasks. In the afternoon, the two younger kids had a birthday party to go to so after dropping them, I went to the library near by to work on some supertitles for an upcoming gig. I’ve been having a hard time finding time to focus on work at home, so it was nice to go to the library where the distractions were fewer.

In the afternoon, the 14 year old wanted to go to the mall with her friends. (I mean the Shopping Mall, not the National Mall… I feel like I do have to specify that given where we are and all that.) The two major malls near are about to pass a 3pm curfew. Which means us that after 3pm, if you are under 18 years old, you must have a chaperone/parent/guardian with you who is 21 or older. THREE O’CLOCK in the afternoon!!! I’m so irked that my kids will not have the mall rat experience. The curfew is understandable because of some shenanigans (and then some) that have been going on lately at the mall – some of which I understand were quite violent. The mall is just trying to protect their businesses and patrons. But even still….

Anyhow, the 14 year old didn’t really have much interest in roaming the mall with her teenage friends prior to the news of the curfew, but I think she figured she should experience that which is about to be taken away from her. So on Saturday she went to the Mall with some of her friends. Near as I can tell, they browsed some stores, she had sticker shock as to how much clothes really cost, and she had some food and boba.

Saturday night we went to our favorite dumpling house for dinner, ate way too much and came home and collapsed in food comas. The 14 year old, the Husband and I watched an episode of Gilmore Girls and then a Kathleen Madigan comedy special. The latter was very funny.

Sunday morning was again one of those stretches that on paper seems empty, but somehow got filled with laundry, and dishes, and chores, and throwing a football around with the 9 year old. I had wanted to go to the park or ride bikes with the kids in the morning, but the weather was kind of grey and drizzly all day. Is this the start of autumn? I mean it is technically autumn now, but it feels like a switch flipped in the past couple of days and we went from scorching heat to grey and damp. The kids are wearing pants! PANTS!! I put on pants too. Pants always seems like a seasonal marker.

Sunday late morning, we spent two hours in spitting rain watching the 9 year old play flag football. This is a new activity for him – I signed him up for flag football because trying to figure out soccer made my brain hurt. The weather was gross but not bad enough to cancel the game. (They only cancel for Thunder). Props to everyone who stuck it out. I had my large golf umbrella with me, and I stood on the sidelines holding it over the kids who were waiting to go in. Our team was soundly trounced, but I think that’s okay when you have a team that’s played together for two weeks (us) playing against a team that has been together for five years (them.) The 9 year old seems to like Flag Football; he likes playing defense and chasing people down.

After we got back from flag football we had an hour or so to decompress, eat lunch and then we headed to Chuck E. Cheese for the (now!) seven year old’s birthday party. We had gotten the low frills party package – basically game cards and a reserved table – no host or extras, and we ordered pizza separately. But there were three other birthday parties going on at the same time so we did get visited by the person in the giant mouse suit, took part in the dance party, and the 7 year old got to do the ticket blaster. I find Chuck E. Cheese over stimulating, but I think the kids all had a great time. It’s funny how exhausting a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party can be, even though we didn’t do much other than say hello and hand out the game cards. (Also pro tip that I didn’t realize until after the fact – you can pause your game card. I wish I had known this because we spent 30-40 minutes eating pizza and cake and then afterwards only had 15 minutes left on our card to play. Next time, I’ll have folks pause their game cards so they extend the time available after cake.)

The 7 year old in the ticket blaster. She was smart and figured out that it was easier to grab the tickets that were on the floor than the ones flying through the air.

I did go into the photobooth – we didn’t get the the whole family into the photo booth this year – the 9 year old couldn’t be pried from playing Halo – but we got the Husband and his girls, and I got into the photobooth with my mom and the oldest. I think the Photobooth is my favorite thing at Chuck E. Cheese.

We came home and I’m writing this post while supervising the 7 year old as she opens presents and writes thank you cards. We’ve been miserable failures at getting the kids to write Thank You Cards, so I’m very determined this time that the cards will be written as the presents are opened. Wish us luck.

Other Things This Past Week:

–The youngest kid turned 7! The actual day of her birthday was quite busy with activities, so we had her favorite dinner (Ama’s chicken wings, steamed green beans, and tater tots) and then after everyone got back from activities we had strawberry shortcake. Happy Birthday to this smart, bold, fearless, happy kid. We’re so lucky you’re part of our family.

–The NY Times came out with ANOTHER List – 100 Best TV shows of the 21st Century -which seems a little presumptuous because we’re barely a quarter of the way into the 21st century, so it seems a little early to say. But hey – it’s a fun exercise and I’m sure it gets them lots of clicks. Here’s a link to the list, if you’re interested. ANYHOW… I haven’t seen very many of these shows – (I’ve seen 22 of the 100. And that’s just seen at least one episode, not “seen’ in any kind of completist way.) – but I have quibbles. It seems that the list leans heavily towards shows featuring a lonely anti-hero, solitary existentialism, and trauma leveraged for entertainment. Let’s see – the top five are: Breaking Bad, The Wire, Mad Men, Succession, Fleabag.

I haven’t seen Fleabag or Breaking Bad, but the other shows are shows that I find deeply unpleasant to watch. Not that they aren’t compelling in their own way. Not that I wasn’t sucked in to them. But in the end, they all feature some pretty demoralizing things happening to people.

Life is hard enough – I don’t need to spend my free time watching horrible people doing horrible things to each other.

I mean where is Bluey on this list? I think Bluey is quite brilliant, actually.

Or Brooklyn 99? Or Parenthood? Or Younger?

Clearly I don’t have very refined tastes.

–The absolute heartbreakingly bonkers situation of the closing of the Kennedy Center. In case you haven’t heard, the Kennedy Center has had an embattled past year or so, ever since Donald Trump fired the President and the chairman of the board and appointed himself chairman of the board instead. Things have gone downhill since then – his name went on the building. Ticket sales plummeted. Entire departments were gutted. The name came off the building (court ordered). He’s trying to find ways to put his name back on the building. And then last week, the Center was closed, citing dangerous conditions. It’s all so bonkers.
This is a place that I’ve considered my work home for over twenty years. I’ve spent a large chunk of my working life there. I’ve met the best people there – backstage and onstage. It’s where I’ve seen so many great performances, where my kids and my parents have seen so many great performances. One of the Husband and my first dates were there. My oldest has performed on the stage there. And to have the place be shut down is bewildering and gut-wrenching. I’m so mad that our President doesn’t seem to understand the purpose of a national arts center, or of a place being a living memorial that honors a dead president. To have my industry be so fundamentally misunderstood is so very very frustrating. But also … I find it baffling that he cares – there are so many other issues he could go piss on (and that he does). Why deny people the opportunity to experience the Arts? All to say, the whole thing is pretty devastating to watch.

–On a happier note – did you see that the Mayor of New York is giving away free opera tickets to New Yorkers who haven’t been to the opera since 2019? This is government involvement in arts done right.

–These enormous grapes. On another happier note – I was at HMart last week and saw there enormous grapes. Of course I bought a bag to try out and there are SO good! They are crisp and juicy and sweet. I googled it and apparently these grapes are only in season in August and September, which means we’re near the end of seeing them in stores. I’ll have to remember for next year. I might have bought at least ten lbs of these grapes in the past week. We’ve been polishing off a bag a day. Good thing they were on sale at HMart for 2.99/ lb!

–This article was an interesting read: How to Raise a Son Who is Boring and Unattractive to Women. I mean that title is click bait right there. The author does acknowledge that he is writing from a certain culturally specific ideal, but I think he does make a good point about the importance of being well rounded. There is a certain privileged bourgeoise nature to his criteria – not everyone is going to be able to afford a piano let alone lessons – but I really like his idea of teaching kids to have lots of interests – boys who don’t just do sports, but boys who also find a pathway in the arts – and raising kids who can talk to adults and who can read. I think, though, more important than the reading, is a sense of curiosity. I had forwarded the article to a friend who is deep in the trenches of dating and she said that worse than boring men are the narcissistic men who are only interested in themselves. I don’t think this article applies only to men, but to humanity in general (again, hierarchy of needs and all that…). When we have casting calls at work and the ratio of boys to girls is 1:8, it makes me a little sad that boys aren’t being encouraged to participate in the arts the way girls are. Anyhow, food for thought.

Grateful For:
-My back up car flannel. I keep one of the Husband’s old plaid flannel shirts in the car in case anyone needs an extra layer. And oh boy, last week, that layer was needed. I left the house, blissfully thinking that it was still summer. It was not. It was so very cold. I’m glad I keep this flannel in the car for those moments.

-The now 7 year old. What a brighter world this is for her being in it!

-That is rained and took the humidity out of the air, replacing it with bracingly crisp autumn breezes.

-The Husband driving us to and from Monticello safely. (Monticello recaps coming soon!). I don’t like driving so I’m always grateful that he wants to do all the driving on our road trips.

-Happy Hour with my bus stop moms. I’m grateful we could squeeze in one last gathering before my schedule got super busy.

-My bike! There was one day I drove to work and it took twice as long as normal because there was a lot of construction. The next day, I rode my bike and it was faster and I got a good workout. I was realizing that I’ve had my bike for twenty years. I remember when I bought the bike, thinking it was so expensive – it was probably a couple hundred dollars, which was a big deal in my twenties – , but it has definitely recouped the investment.

-My Parents’ visit. My father is 82 and my mother is 77 and I sometimes take it for granted that they are still active and able to visit and hang out with the kids. Their minds are still sharp and engaged and I feel so lucky to have them with us still.

Looking Forward To:
-The Stage Managers are coming! A New Show Is Starting! My work is starting to ramp up – I’m excited, but also a little bit nervous about what’s coming up for us.

-Hair cut. I like to get my hair cut before I start a new show so I have an appointment for this week. Looking forward to having bangs again.

-Trombone! The 9 year old starts instrumental music at school this week. He’s picked the trombone. The Husband plays the baritone – I’m looking forward to hearing then play duets. I’m really glad the 9 year old’s school is still committed to music for the students.

-Hallowe’en costumes. I bought fabric for the kids’ costumes and I’ve cut the patterns for one of the pieces. I’m rubbish at cutting patterns – that’s the hardest part for me. I’m glad that’s over and I’m looking forward to the actual sewing part for the first garment I’m making. Wish me luck.

– Reading more of this book – it’s kind of a twist on Jane Eyre, set in Old Hollywood. Jury is out on it so far – it’s got a confusing dual timeline thing going on – but I do love a Jane Eyre re-telling.

What We Ate:

Monday – we got home from our trip. No one was particularly hungry since we had had a huge lunch on the way home, so it was kind of scrounge and snack as you will.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Chicken and black bean tacos – meat pulled from the freezer.

Wednesday: Ama’s Chicken wings, steamed green beans, tater tots – the 7 year old’s requested birthday dinner. Strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Strawberry shortcake w/ fresh whip cream and strawberries. so tasty!

Thursday: Spicy Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili from NY Times Cooking. Our friend had given us his CSA for the week since he was going to be gone and there was a lot of sweet potatoes. This was tasty and we have plenty left over for the freezer. Vegan.

Friday: Toby’s Dinner Theatre. There was so much food at the buffet.

Saturday: Dinner out at our favorite dumpling house.

Sunday: The 7 year old’s birthday party – Pizza at Chuck E. Cheese. Ice Cream Cake from Dairy Queen. I had a turkey sandwich when I got home. Why is there something so deeply satisfying about a sandwich? Just bread, cheese, meat, mustard – so simple and satisfying to eat.

That’s it for this week! Can you believe the end of the week is October??? Turning the corner into the last quarter of the year!

Were you ever a mall rat? Have you ever been to a dinner theatre? Or Chuck E. Cheese? What kind of things do you keep in the car in case of emergency?

(bi, er… tri)Weekly recap + what we ate: Labor Day Weekend 2026 and more

And then I see the end of September just around the corner. Not sure when that happened. It’s been a bit since I wrote a re-cap post, so this might be a little bit of a brain dump. September has been kind of quietly inefficient for me. I’m only working 5-10 hours a week. The other day, the Husband asked me, “What do you do all day?” And I can’t really say where the time goes. I mean aside from the one morning that I ignored everything to finish Nora Goes Off Script….

Let’s see in this period of underemployment….

-I make dinner without feeling like I’m in a rush, even when we have to eat at the dot of 5pm so people can get to activities.

-I spend hours researching how I’m going to make the kids’ Hallowe’en costumes.

-I walk the kids to the bus and then go for a run afterwards, or even just walk the long way home.

-I even got to bike with the kids to school a few times.

-I bake muffins.

-I replace the torn screens on six of our windows. All by myself. This is actually quite easy to do; it took less than ten minutes per window.

-I have spent more time scrolling the internet than I should. Internet rabbit holes are my nemesis and always make me feel…. blergh-y. It is ironic how much time I spend reading blogs and articles online about maximizing productivity since it is precisely reading blogs and articles about productivity that is keeping me from being productive.

-Also clearly I haven’t been blogging a lot. This is one area I would like to be more disciplined about. Not because I think I have incredible content that must be pushed out into the world, but more because it’s a creative outlet and I like to try to do something creative every day in a routine way.

Anyhow, things are going to change because I’m on to a 20 hour a week (paid) work schedule starting this week. Which doesn’t sound like a lot of time in the office, but it means being in the office approximately 10:30a – 3:30pm. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for other, non-paid things. Maybe I can get a run in before work, or declutter one thing. Run one errand. Maybe it will make me more efficient. Or maybe it will stress me out and I will revenge bedtime procrastinate even more.

And then in October, I’m back in rehearsal and it’s game over then for leisure time. To be honest, I’m kind of dreading October until the end of the year. It’s going to be a really exhausting time at work, I can tell already. Usually when work ramps up, family is the first things that falls by the wayside and I want to figure out how to not let that happen this year. I will ponder….

On to other happenings….

Ever since the school year has shifted to starting before Labor Day, I’ve always felt like the holiday has come a very inconvenient time. We get momentum from starting school then… whoa. Here’s a long weekend to throw the routines out of wack.

The past couple of years, Labor Day Weekend has meant Maryland Renaissance Festival. They have a new ticketing system this year where tickets are released in two batches – one set in July and one set the Monday before the weekend. It was a little confusing, because if you check for tickets mid week it will look like everything is sold out. And then you will be sad. I guess I understand – last year tickets were being sold on re-sale sites for 3 or 4 times what they cost. All to say, the new ticketing system was very confusing and I was worried we wouldn’t get tickets. So couple weeks ago when I saw that a batch of tickets had ben released for Labor Day, I snatched them up.

On the day, I managed to get everyone out of the house by 9:00am and we got to the Renn Faire around 9:50am, then it took us another 15 minutes to get through the gates – it was very crowded. Aside from the 6 year old’s floral crown, no one got dressed up this year – we just went as we were.

Friends, I love going to the Renn Faire SO MUCH. As we were walking up to the gate, I was struck with a giddy sense of excitement for the day ahead. “I love this more than Christmas,” I sad to the kids. “It’s just as fun and I don’t have to cook!”

It was a really good day. We saw all our favorite shows – acrobatics, juggling, physical comedy, music. We saw the jousting twice; there are three jousting show throughout the day and we always go see more than one because there is a narrative arc built into the day.

We heard some new to us musicians – isn’t music grand? I don’t know that I’ll ever go to a rock concert or anything on that scale, but I do love listening to and seeing people play music. There were bagpipes! We browsed the shops – the 9 year old bought a battle axe that is over half his size. We ate turkey legs and other food and drank lots of Pepsi because it was super hot.

On the matter of hydrating – I made kind of a critical mistake this time. Last year water bottle fillers were installed, which was great. In previous years I always brought two big bottles of water with me because you had to bring sealed water. Well now with the bottle fillers, I thought I’d just bring my small Nalgenes and not weigh myself down so much. Well that was a bit of a mistake because the lines for the water filler were soooooo long. I think I waited at least 15 minutes each time I went to fill my water bottle. The second time, I did a little thought experiment as I waited in line – “If someone were to walk up to me now, and offer to instantly fill my water bottle for $2, would I do it so I wouldn’t have to stand in line?”

Because that’s the thing – the soda is $2. (It’s not a terrible deal and the soda stands are run by a rotating roster of youth organizations as a fundraiser. So really it’s more liek $3 because I like to tip. “Huzzah for the generous tipper!” they always yell when someone puts money in the tip jar.)

Anyhow, I don’t know what my threshold would be for paying for water vs. spending time standing in line, but I did miss the last few numbers of the bagpipe band, so maybe it would have been worth the $2 to have a cold soda and hear music. I find the internal calculator such a fascianting thing.

Next year, I will bring bigger water bottles. Any maybe also fill them with ice.

We stayed at the Renn Faire til closing, when members of the company sing a last parting song at the gates. Then we got in our cars and wistfully went home, eagerly looking forward to next year.

Because there will always be a next year. The Maryland Renn Festival is 50 years old this year. There were a series of signs up throughout the grounds this year with tidbits of history and blurbs about the people who had performed here over the years. What a beautiful tradition. May it keep going for another fifty.

Other fun things that we’ve been up to so far this month –

-Date Night. The 14 year old’s voice teacher was performing in a production of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS, one of my favorite pieces of music. Although I’ve worked on MASS, I’ve never been in the audience for it – it takes a lot of people to put it on, dancers, singers, chorus, children’s chorus, orchestra…. So when I saw that it was being performed, I asked the Husband if he wanted to go. He said yes and it was date night! We even went out to dinner before hand – it was Restaurant Week in DC, so I picked a nearby restaurant from the list of participating restaurants. We ended up at Ottoman Taverna where the tzatziki was melt in your mouth smooth, and pita fluffy, and the meat grilled to perfection.

-One last swim in the pool. Most outdoor pools here close on Labor Day, so we managed to squeeze in one last evening at the pool. It was raft night so people could bring their floaties. I swam laps, we had dinner sitting in Lounge chairs, and we enjoyed on last relaxing poolside evening. I’ve already paid the membership for next summer.

-A Visit from my Cousin and a trip to Glenstone Museum. My cousin and her mom – okay technically her mom is my cousin, but I call them all cousins – were here visiting. I love how they just fold into the family. They help around the house, eat whatever we were planning on eating, cuddle on the couch, and put up with the noise and chaos of three kids with big feelings.

Glenstone Museum. Nature trails leading to a Richard Serra sculpture.

My cousin loves Glenstone Museum, so she got tickets to visit. Glenstone is a museum of contemporary art with several galleries set on 300 acres of land. There is also a restaurant and walking trails and many many outdoor sculptures.

Jeff Koons, seen from a skewed distance. This is a fun sculpture to see throughout the seasons. because the vegetation changes.

This time there was a striking exhibit of works by the artist and activist Andrea Bowers that were centered on issues of body autonomy and environment. There was a room that was papered with letters written to an abortion activist who was known for providing people with a list of abortion providers. It was really heartbreaking, reading all the letters from people – women, men, parents, all desperate for help.
There were some stunning images drawn on canvases made of recycled cardboard, including one that had the tagline, “Women and the Earth have to tolerate a lot.”
I suppose Bowers’ work had a little more politics than I was comfortable with for a sunny Friday afternoon, but I imagine making people confront their discomfort was part of the point.

-Back to School Night, including our first High School Back to School Night. Wow. It’s been a long time since I was in high school so it was a little surreal to once again be wandering hallways, looking for classrooms. It must be so hard this constant sense of change that high school brings – every few months, it’s new teachers, new classrooms, new patterns. I also wondered if my parents ever went to Back To School night? I don’t really remember; I certainly never accompanied them if they did go. But of course, school communication was very different back then. I’m pretty sure schools sending out email communication wasn’t a thing when I was in school.

-I finished watching Starstruck on HBO Max – I really loved this show. It’s about a twenty something woman who has a one night stand with a famous movie star which turns into more, which turns into on again, off again, what am I doing with my life? The show is funny, messy, and filled with just the right amount of existential angst and rom com warm fuzzies.

-I started taking tap dance lessons! I signed up for a seven week class. I feel frumpy and uncoordinated, but there is something very satisfying about intentionally making lots of noise.

-Funny Kid Quote: I asked the kids the classic question of if they would rather be a big fish in a little pond, or a little fish in a big pond. The six year old replied, “I want to be in a big pond so I can have the whole pond to myself!”

Grateful For:
-The Maryland Renaissance Festival. Every year we go, I just feel so lucky that we have the country’s best Ren Faire so close to us.

-My (former) work colleague C, who has now gone on to bigger and better things. She was so brilliant at her job, always logical and clear-eyed, and handled very difficult situations with grace and tact. I’m sorry to see her go, but I’m glad that she’s on to fulfill other dreams. I’m so glad I got to work with her.

-Music. Especially when it’s played in the car very loudly and everyone sings along.

-Free Bus Ride. The local county bus is free to ride. I had some errands to run the other day, and decided to take the bus. It was so easy to just get on and find a seat. I find this is a lovely use of my tax dollars.

-On that note – car free days. This year, the kids’ bus stop is less than a ten minute walk from our house. And then last week I was able to take the Metro to work. And then because there were no kid activities that evening – I managed to have a car free day. Driving always stresses me out, so I’m always happy to leave the car at home if I can. I realize I am very lucky to have a car to use when I need to, but I am also grateful that I can have a day here and there where I can just get on the metro and read my book.

-The 14 year old taking over some of her own communications. She had to re-schedule a voice lesson the other day, so I asked her to email her voice teacher, and she did. It seems pretty cool that she’s now of an age that she can take care of these things for herself and I don’t have to be the middle person.

-That my grandfather is home. My mother was supposed to come to visit last week, but then my grandfather in Taiwan went to the hospital, so she went to Taiwan to be with him instead. She’ll spend a few days with him then come to us. My grandfather got to go home not soon after my mom arrived, and we Face Timed with him briefly. I guess he was okay since they discharged him. My grandfather is 101 (102 if you’re counting the Taiwanese way), so every day with him active and alert seems amazing. I’m grateful for him receiving medical care and then being well enough to go home. I’m grateful that my mother could get on a plane to him. It’s not nothing to be able to purchase an international ticket at the last minute.

Looking Forward To:

– Come From Away! This is one of the Husband’s favorite musicals and we’ve never seen it live. It is being produced at a theatre here this fall so I got tickets for October.

-Monticello. We have a long weekend coming up for school, so we’re going to go to Charlottesville and visit Monticello. My father, who is visiting, has always wanted to go, and it’s not really that far. We’re going to make a two night trip of it and also get some hiking in…. (Note – we’re currently on this trip… recaps coming!)

-Speaking of which …. National Parks! Now that the middle kid is in 4th Grade, we get a free National Parks Pass for the year. We’ll probably take a trip to Shenandoah on the way home from Charlottesville/ Monticello for a half day hike. Closer to us, Great Falls has some really nice hiking along the Potomac. I’ll have to research more. Last time we had a parks pass, we went to the Smoky Mountains.

-A new mattress. We finally went shopping for a new mattress. Our current mattress is maybe 10 years old but it has definite lumps and valleys in it. Shouldn’t a mattress last more than 10 years???? Oh well. I’m looking forward to our new one. This one is flippable, which I ‘m finding is quite rare these days. (Also – side note, as we were wandering through Macy’s we saw an area that was all curtained off. Of course, we were curious, so we took a peek behind the curtains, and what did we see….?

(Christmas is COMING!!!!)

-We also have a new fridge coming. I might have mentioned the conundrum of our old fridge starting to work fine again after we bought a new fridge. Well we couldn’t stop the order and delivery of the new fridge, so the old fridge is getting sent for Recycling by Pepco (our electricity company). It makes me a little sad to get rid of a working fridge, to be honest. Argh. One of those frustrating things in life.

-Gilmore Girls. When Gilmore Girls first came out, I was just out of college and I didn’t have a television. Which, back in 2020, you needed a television to watch TV. (funny, that. Also funny that they still call them TV shows when you don’t need a TV to watch them these days.) So, partly inspired by J, I’ve decided to fill the Gilmore Girls sized gap in my cultural literacy. It feels so cliched, but I’ve been watching with the 14 year old. There are many many many seasons, so it will probably take me a decade to get through this show, but I’m looking forward to it.

-Reading this book – it’s about Taiwan, how could I not pick it up?

And listening to this audiobook:

What we ate: Oh wow – I haven’t post meals since the start of the month…. Okay. So here is three weeks’ worth of meals:

Monday: Pasta and meatballs and garlic bread. The 14 year old cooked. The meatballs were from the freezer – I had made them a while ago.

Taco Tuesday: Cuban Pork Tacos. from the freezer. I also made a pot of black beans to go with. And quick pickled red onions.

Wednesday: Chicken noodle soup, at the request of the kids.

Thursday: Pad Thai – the Husband made. I went to Happy Hour send off for my colleague C.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made at home) and Avatar Last Airbender live action movie from 2010. The movie was not great, but also ended on a cliff hanger, so I’m a little irate that there isn’t a sequel. Also it was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, which I find fascinating.

Saturday: The Husband and I had dinner out for Date Night. The 14 year old made fried rice at home for her younger siblings.

Sunday: KFC eaten at the pool. Fried Chicken has always struck us as a perfect meal to bring to the pool, but for whatever reason fried chicken never made it on the menu all summer. Until the last day. It was crispy, crunchy, and delicious.

Monday: Ren Faire! We ate fair food and our own snacks throughout the day and weren’t hungry for dinner when we got home.

Taco Tuesday: Freezer Tacos again – the rest of the batch of Cuban Pork Tacos from the freezer that we had eaten last week. (We are in a major “clean out the freezer” phase right now.)

Wednesday: Thai Quinoa Salad. This recipe from Cookie and Kate, only I used coleslaw mix rather than red cabbage – I didn’t want to shred a whole head of cabbage – and I added edamame instead of snow peas for a boost of protein. This was really tasty and packed full of veggies and topped with a peanut dressing. I really needed this injection of vegetables. Vegan.

Thursday – Roasted Salmon and potatoes w/ green beans. The 14 year old cooked.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Aristocats. I had never seen Aristocats before – my cousin picked this movie; when we have guests visiting, we always let our guests pick the movie for pizza and movie night. And truth to tell, I still can’t claim to have seen this movie because I fell asleep about thirty minutes in. It was probably just as well that I fell asleep because afterwards we watched a music video for one of the musical numbers and there were some pretty problematic Asian stereotypes going on with that Siamese Cat. I don’t know… I still get super uncomfortable with slant eyed/ chopstick wielding/ sing song voiced characters in movies. Maybe I should squirm my way through them and have conversations with the kids about how terribly racist people are and how this is not okay to distill entire races down to one or two exaggerated elements. But you know… when I was growing up, kids pulled their eyes into slants at me and I really don’t need to subject myself to that willingly. So… sorry kids, you don’t get to see fake Asians on my watch. You’ll just have to settle for watching other egregious bits of racism – like Peter Pan. (All of this, I realize, makes Breakfast at Tiffany’s kind of difficult because it is, Mickey Rooney aside, one of my favorite movies…. Sigh. The world is complicated.)

Saturday: Butter Chicken with rice and paratha. My cousin brought a spice packet with her when she visited and the kids like chicken.

Sunday: Butternut squash curry with tofu and noodles. I know there’s a fancier name for this dish, but the Husband made it, so I don’t know what the real name is. But it was really tasty. And bonus – he used up a bag of butternut squash that was in the freezer.

Monday: Chicken Parm Pasta. The 14 year old cooked. This meal was very tasty, but more soupy than expected.

Taco Tuesday: We went out to eat because our favorite Mexican restaurant was having music and Taco Tuesday specials.

Wednesday: Soup. I can’t remember, to be honest, but I think this was some kind of soup that I pulled from the freezer and re-heated.

Thursday: Tofu rice bowls. Sort of based on this recipe from NY Times Cooking, only I made the tofu from this recipe, and added edamame and used brown rice. I love a good bowl where each person can craft their own thing. Vegan-ish since I used honey.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Air Bud. It was my father’s turn to pick the movie and he wanted something that was a comedy. After some really inappropriate suggestions (including Booksmart, and something in French), we decided on Air Bud – it’s got dogs AND basketball – something for everyone in our family. I have to admit, I might have teared up more than once during this movie. I hear there are sequels…. Wait I just looked it up. There are FOURTEEN Air Bud movies. Ouf. Not sure if I will make it through all (or any) of them….

Well, that’s the bits and bobs of September so far here… this week is a short school week, and we’ll be celebrating a few birthdays, plus my parents are in town, so that will be fun.

Do you have a favorite National Park? Have you seen any Christmas Decor yet? How much would you pay to not stand in line for 20 minutes to fill your water bottle?

Books Read August 2026

August was such a good reading month! I don’t know what happened, but I read 11 books in August – that’s more books than I ever remember reading in one month, or even two months some times. I would chalk it up to lengthy commute (hence lots of audiobooks) and being on vacation/ under employed and also reading books that I just couldn’t put down.

So many of the books too were excellent reads. My two favorites were Dolly All The Time and Etna, but in any other month, there are easily three other books on this list that would have been a “top read of the month.”

And the Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb by Garrett M. Graf, read by Edoardo Ballerini and a full cast (too many to name here…) – This book is made up of first person accounts surrounding the atomic bomb. I had a strange moment as I was listening to this book. It was July 16th and this being a history book, dates were pretty important. I realized that I was listening to the book on the 81st anniversary to the day that the first atomic bomb test (Trinity) took place – July 16th, 1945. There was something so immediate to know that wow – this is what the world felt like at the time Trinity happened – kids were out of school, the country was in the lazy, hazy days of summer. And most of America was going on with their lives (like I was), and this colossal thing was happening that would change the world. Also it was two months before my father was born. I mean that fact isn’t that important to the world, but somehow it grounded the events in the book. This book covers a huge range of things – from the very science of nuclear fission, through the formation of the Manhattan Project, to the stories from the Japanese people who were on the ground in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The science definitely went over my head, but what kept me listening was the human aspects of the story – the Jewish physicists who fled Nazi Germany to come to America; the hiring decisions; the people who up and moved to work on the atomic bomb project; the towns that were built in Los Alamos NM, Oak Ridge TN, and Hanford WA to support the project – the government built entire towns!!; the day of Trinity and who was there and who had to watch from afar; the pilots who flew the Enola Gay (also – very cool because I’ve seen that plane in the Air and Space Museum here); the doctors on the ground in Japan trying to save people. The survivors. The aftermath. There’s a whole section where people talked about how the decision was made as to which cities to bomb – the seeming disregard for human life in those decisions. I think aside from the science and the war room strategies, this book really sucked me in with the human emotions and thoughts behind the atomic bomb – the joys of scientific discovery and also the crushing grief of loss and destruction.

Dolly All The Time by Annabel Monaghan – This is a fake dating romance that is kicked off when single mom Dolly is persuaded by Stewart, the handsome scion of a Rhode Island family, to be his pretend girlfriend. I am so grateful for whomever stuck this book in a Little Free Library at the pool because I LOVED this book soooo much and I’m really glad to have my own copy to re-read whenever I want. Which has been something like three times already. I stayed up until 4am to finish this book because I really needed to know how everything worked out and this book now has a permanent place on my nightstand. I’ll just randomly pick it up and re-read passages of it because every scene is just so perfect. I don’t much like fake dating, so I was a little skeptical going in. I also don’t really like first person romance novels because the other side of the love equation never comes across as a complete person. Monaghan, however, managed to blow past all my reservations. She writes in such a way that Stewart comes across as a nuanced and vulnerable character, not just some fantasy of Dolly’s. There is a part of this book that is fantasy wish fulfillment – rich guy comes takes care of things for the over-worked, ever responsible and resourceful single mom – but also I really loved how Dolly has to work to figure out so many things for herself about life and family, (and so does Stewart). There’s something about this book that straddles the line between literary fiction and romance; yes, you get the Happily Ever After, but there is also sotry of growth and family- there is more going on than just two people falling in love. At the end, I felt like Dolly will be okay if Stewart never calls her back, even while I kept hoping that he figures his shit out too. Swoony, funny, and oh so satisfying.

Welcome to Murder Week by Karen Dukess, read by Carlotta Brenton – What a fun premise – When Cath finds out that her estranged dead mother had booked a vacation for the two of them to a murder mystery week in a quaint English village. Stuck somewhat in a rut, she decides to use her mother’s trip to shake up her life a little bit. This is one of those books where I think I enjoyed it more on audio than I would have if I had just read it. The fake murder mystery plot and reveal were cute, but a lot of the characters and plot points seemed a little forced. It’s the kind of thing where the characters were quirky and entertaining to listen to, but they might have really annoyed me if I were reading it. But all in all, this was pretty entertaining, if not wholly memorable.

Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser– This is a Cinderella re-telling, told from the Stepmother’s point of view. I feel like Cinderella’s Stepmother falls in the category of cliched unredeemable villains – I couldn’t imagine the world where she comes off as reasonably likable. Well, this book proved me wrong. I really loved this book and how it is such a different look at everyone in the Cinderella story – not just the Stepmother, but also the sisters, the Prince, and Cinderella herself. At it’s core, this is a story about a mother – strong willed and imperfect – trying to raise three girls in a world where women don’t hold any power. The plot never lets up, with secret after secret slowly unspooling and about mid way through the book, it moves from feeling like a fairy tale re-telling to feeling like a fast-paced thriller. Very readable, but also I loved what a story of female empowerment this was.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell – Here’s the thing I’ve come to realize about Maggie O’Farrell after three books – maybe she just isn’t for me. I LOVED Hamnet, thought it was the most beautiful book I’d read in ages. I was meh about The Disappearing Act of Esme Lenox – I thought it was cliched plot wrapped in beautiful writing. And now The Marriage Portrait. Look – she writes beautifully precise prose. Her writing plunges you into a world where you can feel the velvets and breathe the air. BUT.. but but…. she leverages trauma in a way that makes me feel manipulated and gross. I don’t feel like she’s exploring traumatic events in her character’s lives for any great point; she’s just making her characters miserable. So much as I admire her writing, I don’t know that I’ll put her back on the top of my TBR any time soon. Maybe in the future when I’m able to read about horrific things with a sense of personal growth. That’s not something I can currently do.

Etna by Paul Yoon– This short novel is told through the eyes of Etna, a bomb sniffing dog who tries to find his (her?) way home after the war ends. I listened to this on audio with the 6 and 9 year olds. There were a couple of times when I almost turned it off because there are some violent things in this story, but the kids were so invested in Etna’s journey that they wanted to keep listening. I loved how Etna clung to the dream of going home even when things got tough. I loved the friends that Etna made along the way. This unnamed country is a pretty defeated place in the wake of war, but there is still kindness. I love how Etna never judges those around him, but does understand and recognize kindness and kinship. I loved how Etna defined home as a place where he had once known peace. He’s a remarkably clear eyed narrator. I asked the 6 year old what she liked about the book, and she said, “I liked that Etna made friends and even though there were some side times, in the end, Etna was happy.”

The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forrest – In this contemporary romance, Lily Greene, who dreams about being a children’s book editor, strikes up a correspondence with her favorite Fantasy author. He writes back then suddenly ghosts her. A year later, Lily asks her new neighbor Nick to help her find a date to her sister’s wedding. Well… you probably know what the plot twist is here. This book was fine – I didn’t love it. The writing’s a little workaday. I just felt like there wasn’t a lot of chemistry between the two main characters and you could tell that other characters and details were being dropped into the book so that they could be put into future books. (This book is first in a series.)

Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian– This contemporary M/M romance is about two actors on the same long running hit sci-fi tv series who have had an ongoing on set rivalry. But then life circumstances intervene and Simon and Charlie are forced to be there for each other. I thought this book was pretty great. It’s not an explosive romance novel, but rather a quiet slow burn where Simon (the story is from his POV), gradually comes to realize that Charlie is no the rash ball of chaos that he thought he was. In fact Charlie is more thoughtful and deep than Simon had ever given him credit for. I loved this book for the inside look into tv series, the way people end up caring for each other, and a super cute dog. Also, this book has a lot to say about being a creative and putting something out into the world that make people happy, and as a person in a creative field, I really need to hear that from time to time. (I had a quote from this book as a quote of the month in my August recap post.)

Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan– of course after finishing Dolly All the Time, I wanted to read everything by Annabel Monaghan. This book also is a bit of fantasy wish fulfillment- divorced mom has a fling with hot movie star- but I Nora’s story is so much more than that- it’s about coming to terms with the life you have and hugging the people who are important and letting go of those who aren’t or can’t be. Like Dolly, this book was funny, felt real, and had so many beautiful moments and characters. I think the one thing that made this book not as perfect as Dolly is that I never got a sense of who movie star Leo was- he wasn’t a terribly complex or well defined character. His job was pretty much to be hot, caring, and a good listener. Which, as romance novels go, is totally fine by me.

The Carpool Detectives: A True Story of Four Moms, Two Bodies, and One Mysterious Cold Case by Chuck Hogan, read by Gabra Zackman: This is the true story of a group of moms who solve a 15 year old cold case double homicide. I thought this story was fascinating, how the four women banded together and with little more than determination and gumption and their own brains, really dug into the case – the secrets come out, the clues are dissected, people are interviewed again, and memories revived. Also all this was during the first months of COVID – I found the undercurrent of parenting during COVID made me really identify with these women – they’re looking for purpose at a time when the world was on it’s head and it was hard to tell when really mattered. I did find the audiobook a little dry – some of the clues involve getting pretty in the weeds about fraud and finance, which made my eyes glaze over a little bit. There is a part of me that kind of wished this were a podcast rather than an audiobook – there’s something a little more engaging in the tone of podcast voices for this kind of thing. But overall a really gripping non-fiction read.

Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon, PhD and Michael Thomason, PhD – This book was my morning non-fiction book in August and it talks about how boys need to learn emotional literacy to deal with all the social and emotional changes that they face. The book talks about how we have to teach boys that life isn’t fair, but that this unfairness is not a threat to them. Daria left an interesting comment a few weeks ago about how this book seemed a little dated; the advice in the book is nothing revolutionary today. I think she is right – I don’t know that I came away from this book with more insights into my my son needs, but I do think reading this book made me think of the world that he is growing up into. I think it’s all very well and good for us to teach our boys that they need to be flexible, empathetic. and willing to express their emotions, but how much good does that do when he is living in a country where a man uses petty retaliation as a tactic for running the country? This is what I realized in reading this book – no matter how much I try to teach my son (actually all my children) how to be emotionally literate, the world he lives in is not sending him these same messages. And that’s one thing that makes me feel like raising a boy is so hard these days. (I mean raising a girl is hard too…. raising any child to be a responsible adult is hard…)

On my Proverbial Night Stand:

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope- the plot is thickening. I have thirty more chapters to go- hopefully I’ll finish before the end of the year.

Game of Rogues by Julie Anne Long – the latest in her Palace of Rogues Series. I’ve been waiting so long for this book!

Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Greene and David Levethin – I’ve had this book on my bookshelf for a while and was looking for something to take me out of my Dolly All The Time hangover so decided to start this one. Teenagers putting on a high school musical! That’s my catnip.

Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, Edited by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, and Sabin Streeter – I had read this twenty years ago, and I was inspired to revisit it by one of Engie’s posts about the book Clean Up on Aisle Five.

Fourteen Talks before Age Fourteen by Michell Icard- My morning non-fiction book.

This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay – on audio. I was snort laughing on the bus while listening to this.

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Good-bye August, Hello September!

Well school has started. We have a new morning bus stop this year that is walking distance from home. It’s actually where the afternoon bus dropped off last year, but for some reason last year there was no morning stop. Well they’ve added one. It’s been picking the kids up at 9:20am every day, which is slightly problematic because school starts at 9:25am. The kids are upset because they don’t get to have breakfast at school. My thought is boo hoo. They get breakfast at home. (Breaking news! The bus will now come at 9:04am! It has opened up my morning in amazing new ways!)

This weekend is Labor Day, and we are off to the Renaissance Festival. Labor Day is late this year, so it doesn’t quite feel like we are almost a week into September. But September it is. So how was August?

August Highlights:
-Tech-ing a show and the one single performance. My friend coming to see the show and riding home with him afterwards.
-Our Indiana/Sarnia/Niagara-on-the-Lake/ Corning Museum of Glass/ Harrisburg, PA road trip.
-Swimming laps at the pool. Not having to rush to get to swim practice, but rather going on our own schedule.
-Submitting passport applications for the two younger kids.
-Read some really good books. (Reading recap coming soon!)
-Peaches! I have some canned for January.
-Lunch and walk with a good friend A.
-Dinner and walk with good friend K and The Husband.
-Slipping in one last Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends before school started.
-Purged the kids’ clothes and made sure they had clothes for the cooler weather.
-Decluttered our linen/medicine cabinet in the bathroom – things like bandaids, tampons and pads, COVID tests. We had so many masks from COVID times – like two drawers full. I’m torn on what to do with all the masks that I had sewn. On the one hand, I don’t think we’ll need them again, but on the other hand, they are an interesting memento of the times. Maybe I’ll keep one or two.
-Two small fresh figs from the fig tree on our back patio, harvested and eaten before the birds got to them.
-A day at the Maryland shore visiting my friend with good company, a relaxing pool, tasty food, and sheep.
-First Day of School! This year the kids are in 9th, 4th, and 1st grades.
-On that note – we have a high-schooler! My heart is bursts with pride watching her navigate life at high school.
-Favorite Dinner Cooked: Well all the dinners I cooked last week were given heart designations in my log. See Below. Also Crispy Tofu Tacos from NY Times cooking was a big hit.
-Favorite Things Watched: I think my favorite thing we watched was Derry Girls. We have one episode left and I’m so afraid to watch it and then have no more to look forward to. I also thought the Sheep Detectives was very entertaining.

Goals And Habits:
Painting: 2 (goal is 1/ week, so I’m falling behind.)
Crossword Puzzle: 1 (also wanted to do one per week. I didn’t bring puzzles with me on the trip, so there was some missed opportunities.)
Live Performance: Saw Wind in the Willows at the Shaw Festival.
Museums: 2 – Corning Museum of Glass and Niagara Power Station
Hike: 1 – Niagara Glen
Yoga: I logged 23/31 days. I might have done more days than that – I wasn’t great at habit tracking last month.
Run: 2 runs/ 5 swims.
Strength: 3x, all while on vacation because we stayed in places with nice fitness set ups. (Goal is 8/ month… wump wump)
Vegan Meals: 2 (goal is 4/ month or 1/week. We didn’t eat a lot of vegan dinners when we were on vacation.)

Clearly being on vacation is good for filling out some goals.

Quote(s) of the Month:
“There’s meaning in making something other people enjoy, something they look forward to, and talk about, and write their own stories about.”
-Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian.
Sometimes I question my career choice, and this quote reminded me that there is value in bringing joy to people and letting them feel emotions.

from This interview with Ina Garten in the New York Times:
“I just love having a good time, and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t, so I always go toward that. I go toward people that are happy. I go toward people and projects that will be satisfying. Fun isn’t always like going down a water slide. Fun is building something with people that you care about. “
Earlier in the interview she talks about how “fun” for her is about having a process or task that engages her. I think this is so important – fun isn’t always joy, but it should be engaging.

“I never get tired of cookies!”
=The 6 year old. Yup. I totally agree.

August Lowlights
-Feeling behind at work. The nature of my contract is that I’m not full time during the summer. I sit in on meetings, but I feel like I’m not getting the full picture of what is going on because I’m not as active as I am when I’m on full time. It gives me a bit of anxiety to think about playing catch up in two weeks.

-Some really bad behavior on vacation that I’m not going to blog about, but it was really tough.

-Our fridge might have died. I’m not quite sure. It stopped working for three days and we ordered a new one, but then our old one is up and running again. Not sure if we should cancel the order of the new fridge or not?

-I feel as if between the vacation and activity sign ups and the fridge and random repairs we’ve been hemorrhaging money this past month.

-The time I forgot my kid’s voice lesson. I hate making stupid mistakes.

Looking Forward to in September:

-The youngest will turn 7! (I had a realization last week that we are 13 months from never needing a babysitter ever again since in Maryland kids can stay home by themselves when they are 8.)

-The Husband and I are going to a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass this weekend. I love this piece – I’ve worked on it, but never seen it. It’s not produced a whole lot becuse it takes a lot of people to put on. This production is kind of being done as a response to all the shit that’s going down at the Kennedy Center since MASS is the piece that opened the KC.

-Family Visit. My cousins are coming to visit, then my parents.

=Renaissance Festival! Going this weekend. fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain!

=Declutter projects. Maybe I should just set one goal for this? Okay – I think the freezer situation is dire and I would like to get a handle on the bins of yarn in my bedroom. That’s two goals. Manageable.

=Starting Hallowe’en costumes. The children have chosen! I need to figure out if I can make them or if I’m just going to buy them.

-Tap Dance classes. I signed up for a 7 week Intro to tap dance class. Here’s trying new things!

-Easing back into work. No shows to rehearse this month, but I have a supertitle gig to prep for and I have to prep for stage managers starting in early October.

Grateful for:
-Loaner fridge. When our fridge stopped working, we went to the local appliance place to buy a new fridge and they gave us a loaner mini fridge to take home. How cool is that? We have a fridge in the basement that we put everything in, but it’s a pain to constantly be going up and down the stairs. The loaner fridge is just big enough for milk and a carton of strawberries, but it’s enough.

-Trail to school. I’m hoping to bike with the 6 and 9 year old to school a few times this fall and I’m glad there is a bike trail most of the way there.

-Passport confirmations and patient post office managers. When we were waiting for our passport appointment, a man came into the post office in a bit of a frenetic state, cellphone stuck to his ear. He was on the phone on hold with the Passport people. Turns out, he had submitted an application a while ago with his girlfriend and his girlfriend got confirmation of materials received and got her passport, but he has heard nary a peep. He’s travelling in a month and, understandably he is in a state of worry and frustration. The conversation was seriously second hand stressing me out. The part of his conversation that really stuck with me was this exchange:
Post office Lady: Did you apply for a new passport or a renewal?
Stressed Out Guy: I applied for a new one.
POL: Is this your first passport?
SOG: I had one like twenty years ago. But then I had my daughter and… you know what, that doesn’t matter. But yeah, I had a passport before, but it’s been twenty years.
Something about the link between having a kid and his passport expiring really got to my heart.
The lady at the Post Office managed to talk him out of his tree and said she would try to find a paper trail on her end for his materials. He left, not rally mollified, but at least he seemed calmer.
It is such a leap of faith, the postal system, right? You put your things in an envelope and hope it gets where it’s going.
Anyhow, grateful that I got an email confirmation this week about the kids’ passport info and that the Post Office Lady calmly helped the frustrated man.

-That the pool is still open. Our pool is open Memorial day to Labor Day, and Labor day is late this year, so we’ve been able to go to the pool in the evenings. I’ve been embracing the 45 minute pool visit – we go after dinner, have enough time for me to swim laps for 20-25 minutes while the kids play. The pool is usually not crowded in the evenings and there is something so blissful about swimming under the pink sunset sky.

-That everyone had an uneventful first day of school. The bus came. The kids got on. The bus returned the kids to us at the end of the day. Hooray.

-Also this is super cool – the 14 year old is taking American Sign Language as her foreign language requirement for high school. Her teacher is Deaf and it’s fascinating to how he manages the classroom. I’m so grateful that the 14 year old has this opportunity.

-That my friend A, who’s husband had been posted to the Middle East for three years came home and we can have long walks and conversations. She’s been home since the Spring, but because they were sent home early, they’ve been living all over the area. Now they are back in their own home a few miles down the road. I’m glad they are safe.

-The 9 year old’s imagination. Yes, he asks for screen time constantly, but when I say not right now, he will go and play. He still gets dressed up and acts out scenarios (usually something to do with alien invaders), or constructs lego planes that he swoops through the house. The other day he said to me, “I’m grateful for my imagination.” Same, little guy. Same.

What We Ate: I was home most of last week to cook and we had some five star dinners.
Monday: Chickpea noodle soup from NY Times Cooking. Vegan. I was not sure how this was going to go over because it has a heavy hand of tumeric and nutritional yeast in it, but it went over like gangbusters.

Tuesday: Fish Tacos from NY Times cooking. This was SO easy to make. We’re trying to have more fish in our lives. We had our tacos with cabbage, pickled red onions, avocado, and chipotle sour cream.

Wednesday: Eggplant pork stirfy with noodles. The Husband cooked. Another 10/10. Not sure where the recipe came from, but it was delicious.

Thursday: Ginger catfish (Trey Cha K’nyei). This is a Cambodian-ish recipe that is so flavorful. There is a huge amount of julinned ginger in the recipe. The ginger gets cooked first in oil and gives the dish a crispy spicy bite. The recipe comes together really quickly; the hardest part is julienning all the ginger, but I used a mandolin and that made pretty quick work of it.

Friday: Pizza (The Husband made) and Karate Kid. Can you believe I’ve never seen Karate Kid? It’s really a great family movie and I enjoyed it. Also a young Elizabeth Shue – so luminous! Also – did you know there’s a show on Netflix called Cobra Kai, which takes place 30 years after the fact and revives the old Daniel vs. Johnny rivalry. We watched the first two episodes and it didn’t quite get off the ground, but Reddit tells me the show really finds its footing in season two.

Saturday: Dumplings and green beans at home. Dumplings from the freezer from our favorite dumpling house. This was our last bag so we need to get more…

Sunday: Tortellini with red sauce. Cut up veggies and fruit on the side. Our standard Sunday Supper.

That’s it from over here! Happy Labor Day Weekend for those that celebrate. And plain happy weekend for those having just another weekend!

Have you seen any of the Karate Kid movies? thoughts on cookies? How old were you when you started staying home alone? What has you excited about September?

Revisiting childhood stomping grounds

A road sign that says "Welcome to Canada" in both English and French.

When I was writing my Indiana/Niagara road trip post, I mentioned that we went through the small Canadian city where I grew up. It hadn’t been a planned pit stop. We were in Detroit and had expected the GPS to take us over the new Gordie Howe Bridge – we even saw the bridge in the distance as we drove to lunch at Buddy’s Pizza. BUT… after stopping for lunch, we pulled up the directions to Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the GPS took us further north to cross the border at Sarnia, Ontario.

Sarnia is city where I grew up; I lived there from the time I was 2 until I was 15 and my family moved to Southern California to be closer to my mom’s family. Plus there were massive layoffs happening at my dad’s work and we wanted to get out while we could. Sarnia is located where Lake Huron becomes the St. Clair River. When I was growing up there were maybe 50, 000 people living there. The area is primarily known for petroleum processing. (There is a nearby city literally named Petrolia because oil was discovered nearby.) The area where all the refineries are is called “Chemical Valley”. Growing up almost everyone I knew had at least one parent working in Chemical Valley for Dow, Polysar, or Esso (also known as Imperial Oil, the Canadian version of Exxon), and that’s actually how my immigrant parents ended up there – my father had a degree in Chemical Engineering and worked for Esso.

Here are some more tidbits I remember from growing up in Sarnia:
– It was very white. Like in my elementary school, we were one of two Asian families. There were no Black families. I didn’t actually clock this until we moved to Southern California when I was 15 and then I was like, “Whoa!” It was a bit of a culture shock.
-Even though there were lots of beaches you couldn’t go into the water because of all the pollution from Chemical Valley. There were always signs up at the beaches that told us we couldn’t go in the water.
-It was a small city – my 5th grade teacher taught music lessons on the side and was my first music teacher; our pediatrician’s office was next to my mom’s bakery, I could walk to school. But at the same time, I had a lot of opportunities; I took music lessons and gymnastics and dance and art classes and played travel soccer and all sorts of things. It was a really safe place to grow up.
-There was a waterpark called Splashdown that was down the road from my parent’s restaurant and they would sometimes let us go there all day during the summer (we must have been like 11 or 13 or so… Would this be okay these days? Maybe…) . There were bumper boats, two different kinds of water slides, and lots of pools with spray areas. And I just looked it up and Splashdown closed in 2015 and this is making me unspeakably sad. I might need a moment here.

So we moved to California when I was 15. Once maybe 25 years ago, when I was on a cross country road trip with a boyfriend whom I don’t remember anymore, we stopped by Sarnia. In the years since, I hadn’t imagined that I would re-visit the city after that – it’s not a destination city or anything. I didn’t think much about Sarnia, except when I took part in that Asian food study in July, I did have to think a lot about what my childhood like and what it was like growing up in a city without an Asian grocery store, and that brought back a lot of memories. So when the the GPS route to Niagara-on-the-Lake had us cross the St. Clair river over the the Bluewater Bridge into Sarnia, and the Husband looked at me, a question in his eyes, I figured fate wanted me to take a little trip down memory lane.

twin steel bridges spanning a river — The Bluewater Bridge.

It was odd visiting my childhood stomping grounds. A lot has changed since 1994, but the bones are still the same. The bridge across the St. Clair River is still there, though though now there are two bridges instead of one. The streets are where the streets were when I was growing up, though there are more cracks in the asphalt and many of the buildings are different – different names, different colours, some buildings gone or replaced. The hospitals are still there. The parks are where the parks were, the library is where it was. Fun fact – another thing that hasn’t changed is the mayor. Mike Bradley was the mayor when I was growing up in Sarnia – I remember him being elected in 1988. He is still the Mayor. Wikipedia says he is the second longest running mayor in Canada.

We didn’t have much time to spend in Sarnia, but I wanted to drive around to see the places that I remembered the most, starting with the neighborhood and house where I grew up. Everything seemed smaller. The park at the end of the street was still there, though it seemed closer than I remember it being when I was little. The large hill that we used to sled down in the winter was still there. The playground equipment was new. But one thing that I found surprising is that the park was still mostly a wide expanse of grass. I was surprised and grateful that the land was still so open, that no one put a mini-mart or anything on top of it.

On to the house where I grew up:

a two level house with an attached garage.

When were were here, the garage was pink. I think my father had found a deal in paint. I didn’t think much about it at the time; the pink garage door made it easy to point out the house when people were dropping me off. Those huge house numbers, though – my father had them custom made. It make me really happy that the numbers are still there. The tree in the front yard is the one I fell out of and broke my right arm the fall I started Grade Five. My parents made me write with my left hand for eight weeks. It’s funny, so many things about Sarnia seemed smaller when I re-visted, except that tree. The tree was bigger than I remembered. Actually it was probably bigger because it kept growing.

My elementary school:

a fenced off school building with rubble in front.

We didn’t get to close because the school was under construction. I didn’t get to poke around, but I could still see the bones of the classrooms. I could still point out the curb where six year old me fell and had to get stiches. The field where my brother got into a fist fight with his best friend. The big patch of grass where we used to lock up our bikes is now a car drop off circle. Car lines weren’t a thing when I was growing up. Twenty years ago, next to our school was a Catholic school. There was a huge rivalry between the two schools. Now the school is gone and there are houses in that plot of land.

We then drove to the place where I spent the second most amount of time, my Mom’s bakery. My mother, with her degree in Library Science, had a Portuguese bakery. She had been a stay at home mom and was looking for a way to enter back into the workforce and running her own business made sense with having young kids. So she bought a bakery from a Portuguese couple and learned from them how to make all the breads and deserts. She bought books and taught herself how to decorate cakes and would make elaborate character cakes.

We drove to the bakery, past the YMCA where I spent all my Saturdays as a kid, swimming and playing floor hockey. The YMCA is now shelter and community resource center. I wonder what they did with the pool. Across from the bakery used to be a Beckers, which is kind of like a 7-11. We used to go there to buy cans of soda. The bakery itself is now a Sewing/Alteration Shop. I wonder if anyone lives upstairs.

I have so many stories and memories from the Bakery. For much of my childhood, the bakery was the third place in our life. Because my father had to go to work early and my mother had to bake bread early, every weeknight, after had dinner, got showers, and put on our PJs, my mother would take my brother and me to the bakery where we would spend the night.

The second floor of the bakery was a one bedroom apartment. The three of us would sleep together in that one bedroom, my mother telling us stories at night to get us to go to sleep. During the day, she would read books between waiting on customers, and at night she would re-tell us the stories that she read. This is how I first heard the story of The Count of Monte Cristo. Only, she would tell us these stories in Mandarin (because that’s what we spoke at home). For the longest time, I thought The Count of Monte Cristo took place on an island off the coast of China. When, in my twenties, I picked up the book, I wondered why the book sounded so familiar.

Then in the morning my mom would get up to bake bread. We would often get a fresh bun with margarine for breakfast. Between batches, my mom would drive us to school. Thinking back on this, I now see how wildly unconventional this was, but at the time, it was just pretty fun to live above a bakery and be surrounded by the smell of baked bread. I think we were lucky to have this in our lives, but I think for my parents, it was just how you make a life.

After the bakery we only had time for one more stop, so I decided I want to see the library. We spent so much time at the library when we were little. It was also walking distance from the bakery so sometimes during the summer, we would just walk down there on our own and spend all afternoon reading books, with trips to the corner store down the block to buy candy. We were in the Children’s department so much that my parents actually got a talking to. “We are not a child care facility,” they told my mother. I always think about how mortifying that must have been for my mother. Here she thought the library was an amazing place full of books – something her kids loved – somewhere she could safely leave the kids when they got bored of hanging out at the bakery on long summer days. And then to be reprimanded.

I don’t know what the upshot of that conversation was, but my brother and I continued to go to the library on our own. And then I made it worse. One day, I was there, reading a book and chewing a big wad of gum. And without thinking, when my gum got flavorless, I took it out of my mouth and stuck it under the radiator. The Librarian was pretty livid about that. After that, my brother and I just went to the adult side of the building. This is where I got my start reading romance novels.

For memories sake – and because the kids needed a bathroom – I took a quick visit inside the library. The layout of the library was much as I remembered – basically an adult section and a children’s section divided by a long glass wall so that the two sections were quite separate. As with so many other things on that day, the children’s section was smaller than I remembered. The storytime corner, which I remembered as being a wide sunken level with steps for kids to sit on while listening to stories, now seems barely big enough for a librarian and her books. I remember this part of the library seeming huge with endless shelves of books when I was growing up, and now, I can see from one end to the other, barely turning my head. But there are still books and small bathrooms, and a friendly librarian… so I guess the important things stay the same.

a photo of a corner of a room. The corner is sunk down with deep steps surrounding it. In the sunken part of the corner is a char and an easel. A television screen hangs above the easel.

We left the library and as it was late afternoon, got back on the road and headed towards Niagara-on-the-Lake. We drove past The Lawrence House, the Victorian Manor turned art gallery where I took art classes in the summer. This is also where my mother would borrow VHS recordings of operas and ballets, one of my first exposures to opera. The Covent Garden recording of the Tales of Hoffmann starring Placido Domingo is a key memory from childhood. Who knew that twenty years later I would start my opera career working for Domingo’s opera company? Now my kid just looks up these videos on YouTube. She is so lucky…

We drove past Centennial Park, location of one of those polluted beaches from my childhood and a walking path along the St. Clair River. (Actually I’m not sure if the beach is still there?) Also the resting place of a large steam locomotive from the 1940s. I remember a photo from our childhood photo album of my brother and I standing in front of this locomotive.

We drove past the Mall where, in the food court, there used to be a place that had the best egg salad sandwiches – they were so creamy with the onions chopped so finely that each bite had just the right amount of pungency.

And then we got on Highway 402 and headed east.

As we were driving off, the sun at our backs, we put on the crowd sourced Road Trip Play List I had made this summer – this is the playlist I compiled by asking people to give me just one song for the road trip. A guy I worked with asked me a million questions before he gave me a song – “Where are you going?” “Are you going somewhere old or somewhere new?” “Is this for the beginning of the day or end of the day?” “Will there be children in the car?”

I had no specific answers for these questions. “Just give me a song!” I said.

So after much pondering, he did.

And about twenty minutes outside of Sarnia, his song came up:

I’d never even heard of this song before – 17 Again by the Eurythmics.

And it was perfect.

Have you ever revisited old stomping grounds? Do you know 17 Again? Where would be the perfect place for you to listen to this song?