Author: Diane

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Opening Night, and April Reflections.

Another show opened! Yay! Now we are open, and I have a week of performances and meetings and cleaning up before I close out opera season. It feels like space has opened up in my life, but it is May which means a lot of life/ family/kid things are happening this month.

This weekend was probably busier than it should have been for me, given that it’s been a little non-stop at work. I should have taken time to gather my forces and refocused on what I need to do on the life admin/home front. On Thursday, my one official day off, I ran errands with a friend, went on a walk with another, took the two older kids to be “Mystery Readers” at the 5 year old’s classroom, took the 8 year old to soccer… it seemed like a lot for a free day when I really just needed to sleep or stare at the wall.

On Saturday, I decided to take the kids to a local street festival. We all biked there, which was really fun. Usually I walk while the two little kids bike and scooter (the 13 year old was on a service project with friends), but this time the kids said I should bike too, and it worked out better than I thought. The 5 year old is a dervish on the scooter and being on a bike, I could finally keep up with her. There’s something really fun about an excursion with the family where all of us are rolling on wheels. My goal is to get the 5 year old off her training wheels this summer.

The street festival has valet bike parking, which was really great. So we biked/scootered to the festival and left our bikes with the bike valet – so convenient. The place was super crowded and at first I remembered why I don’t often go to these festivals – there were so many people; I was supposed to meet up with friends, but I couldn’t find them; the inflatable activities weren’t being monitored and it was open season – chaos and even dangerous as balls and foam arrows flew around. I was actually pretty miserable for the first 30 minutes. But then I managed to pull the kids away from the inflatables/flying objects “fun” zone and we walked down the street and found a children’s musician singing songs about nocturnal animals. We sat in the shade, ate our snacks and listened to music, and I began to decide that I was having fun after all.

We walked on down the road, checking out some displays by various county organizations and found a mountain biking group – they had set up a little course and were letting kids try out mountain bikes. The 8 year old wanted to try and he ended up spending twenty minutes there, riding the same course of two little speed bumps over and over. He’s due for a new bike this spring – he is still using a hand me down purple and turquoise bike with broken pedals, which I think is a testament to how much he loves being on his bike – so afterwards I talked to the people running the mountain biking booth, and they said to get him a mountain bike because he can do whatever he wants on a mountain bike. The group also does youth mountain biking rides with a “no one left behind” philosophy – I’m excited to check it out further for the 8 year old. (And maybe the rest of the family…?)

Afterwards the mountain biking, we stopped at the truck touch, and I did end up running into some friends and having some great catch up time. So in the end, I’m really glad I took the two little kids to the street festival. I think I just have to remind myself to try to find the not so crowded places to be. One thing I thought was cool was they had “sensory friendly” tents where you could sit in a comfy chair with a pair of earmuffs on when things got to be too much. i thought that was such a great idea at an event that could be overwhelming.

That evening, the 13 year old and I got dressed up and went to the Gala Concert at my work. Her favorite opera singer was singing, so I thought it would be fun for her to go. We went with some friends, and it was nice to just go and watch a show without having to work on it at all.

Sunday I took the 5 year old to Agility Class and then came home, turned around twice and then went to work for the Sunday matinee performance. It’s nice that the show is so short because I have time to come home and still have a bit of time to re-set for the week.

I’ve been trying to lean into the idea of a “Sunday reset” to get me ready for the week ahead. So far my Sunday Reset list involves:
-Putting away the floordrobe and all the clothes on the bench in the bedroom.
-taking a shower. For me and the kids.
-planning my clothes for the week.
-boiling eggs for the week so I have easy breakfast. (I can’t find my silicone egg holder for the InstantPot so I’ve been boiling eggs on the stove and they don’t turn out as well. Suggestions welcome.)
-Tidying the living room and my desk. (usually one or the other, but I would love for it to be both.)
-exercise
-Cleaning out the backpack bins by the door
-Bluey with the family. Or Andor.
I would like to also add:
-dealing with the mail bin.
-clipping the kids’ nails. I always forget to do this until their nails are too long. I think if I had a set time to clip nails, it would be better.
-Getting the kids activity bags set so I don’t have to think about it later in the week.
-clean out my purse – it gets so full of receipts over the week.

I’m also wondering where the line is between Sunday routine and Sunday Reset. Maybe one is a flashy internet term and one is just … life. Because I would also like to find time on Sunday to be outside, to write on my blog, to connect with friends. But that doesn’t feel like it’s in the “get ready for the upcoming week.” category. Am I overthinking this? Also where is the line between over thinking and acting mindfully?

April Recap/ Reflections
April was definitely consumed by work work work work. I started prep for a show on March 31st and we had our final dress rehearsal on April 30th.

April highlights:
-finished our taxes on time. Finished the 13 year old’s taxes. (She got paid for the show that she was in last December. It was a 1099 and we claimed her voice lessons as an expense against it, so she ended up operated at a loss last year.)

-rehearsing, teching, and opening a show. It’s been one of the smoothest show processes I’ve ever had. It helps that it’s a remount of an existing production, and the show is short. Even still, everyone was lovely to work with, which is really important.

-“Ask Me Anything” session for the Production Assistants with the Staging Staff at work. So may words of wisdom and practical considerations to pass along to the next generation of people in the arts.

-March Madness. Yes, it says March, but it finished in April. We watched some really exciting games together as a family. I’m not a huge basketball fan, but it’s fun to see the Husband and 13 year old really get into something together.

-My mother and Uncle’s visit. Taking them down to the Mall and walking amongst the monuments.

-The weather – Spring has sprung. Sunshine, warm air. We’ve moved past cherry blossoms into tulips.

-Running – I ran 7 times last month, which is the most I’ve run since November. Getting to run along the Potomac on my dinner break is always great for views. I love that the path I take to run takes me across a bridge over the river, and from that end, I can look back and see my work place all lit up, and it seems so far away – it makes me feel like I accomplished something on my run, even though it’s really only a little more than a mile away.

-Continuing my daily yoga. Some days I squeaked it in with a 10 minutes video before bed, but most days I did 15-20 minutes in the morning.

-Lenten reading group. Such a great group of ladies with whom to contemplate life.

-Take your child to work day. I did not participate – my work hadn’t organized anything, but the Husband took all three kids to work, and they all had a great time. His work place goes all out for TYCW day, with lots of crafts, riding busses, scavenger hunts (one of the items is “Photocopy your hand”)

-figured out the 8 year old’s soccer team. He’s having such a good time being out on the pitch again.

-Easter service with the Bangla musicians.

-we finally got window treatments! It’s a little plain, but better than the mismatched curtains that I had before. I was so delighted by the top down/bottom up mechanism that I spent a good fifteen minutes after they were installed putting the shades up and down. The plainness of the shades do open up the wall on either side, and now I feel like I need art for the wall.

Before
After!

April Lowlights:

  • The Federal Government blood bath continues and it is very much hitting home. I’m trying not to think about it, but almost every conversation I have with friends starts with a ginger, “How are you doing?” because I just don’t know if people still have their jobs or not.
  • Not having a lot of time at home, leaving a lot of the burden of parenting with the Husband. Tech is hard on everyone.
  • Dropping a lot of balls in life admin.
  • Taking the corner into the parking lot poorly and putting a sizable dent in the car. AGH!
  • The house desperately needs a declutter, but I haven’t had time or energy to do it. I’m so tired of not being able to find things or constantly stepping on papers and toys and half done projects.
  • Owing money on taxes. This is to be expected now, but ouf. I’m going yo try to pay quarterly taxes this year, to make April less painful, but it might all be a wash.
  • The death of the Pope. What a humble, wise, kind, and beautiful person. The passing of public figures don’t usually hit me that hard, but the death of Pope Francis brought a real sense of loss.

April Insights- two insights, one practical and one philosophical:

-Practical- and this is super weedy stage management stuff, just warning you – Getting my cues in my book before we hit tech makes life so much easier during tech week. Okay, this seems obvious, but I struggle with this one. One thing I’m trying to work on with my own personal journey as a stage manager, is working ahead when I can. I often wait to put cues in my book because I think, “What if things change?” But you know what? They can’t change all 150 cues. So I should do what I can and move the Post It as I need to. For this show, I had the stage manager’s book from the last time they did this show, and that even gave me time to type my light cues onto labels for my own book. I’ve always kind of raised my eyebrows at people who type their cue labels, thinking it’s a lot of work for something, and kind of fussy. But OMG! how clean and pretty does it look to have all the cues typed?

This is the opening number – this is the most cues I have on one page, but the first twelve minutes of the show is a wild ride indeed. I basically just keep my head down, keep calling cues, counting measures, and am thankful that the lightboard operator is good at her job and keeps up with me.

I had hemmed and hawed about typing my labels because I like my light cues to be in a diamond shape and I couldn’t figure out how to print the labels in the right orientation to make them diamond shaped. I procrastinate for a week, thinking I would be able to figure it out. But then I decided, if the choice is between hand writing all 150+ light cues on the exact right shape label vs. typing them on not quite the right shape …. well typing them is so much faster. So I said to myself, “Diane, stop being ridiculous. Done is better than perfect. Stop waiting for the perfect solution to hit you on the head. You’ve been staring at this for a week now. Just do it the slightly different way and get it done.”

– The Philosophical – At our AMA with our Production Assistants, one of them asked us what is the best advice we’ve ever been given, and one of my co-workers said something that stuck with me. She said that Gavin Creel, a musical theatre star who passed away last year, said something that really stuck with her – (And forgive me if I’m not saying it correctly or paraphrasing it badly – I can’t find internet transcript of his exact words) He said that life isn’t a ladder to climb; it’s a lily pond. We are all on our own lily pads, and sometimes you jump from one lily pad to a bigger one, and sometimes you jump from a bigger one to a smaller one. And sometimes you jump onto a lily pad that sinks and sometimes you jump on to a lily pad that floats away and takes you somewhere unexpected and wonderful. I think this is such a beautiful metaphor because we live in a world that is obsessed with climbing the corporate (or what ever) ladder, but we have to realize that life is not all about climbing up. It’s about finding the lily pad where you want to be, and also about being willing to jump to a different lily pad when the time is right.

Cool Blogger’s Walking Club. Big thank you to Elisabeth for inspiring and highlighting daily movement. Some walks this week: walk on the trail near the 8 year old’s school, and grateful for a bench in the shade. Run at work on my dinner break, with blue skies and cool sculptures and architecture. Walk around the plaza at work on the day when I didn’t quite have time to go for a run. Walk to the Farmer’s market near work, where I got a pineapple ginger paleta (so refreshing, a bracing blend of sweet and spicy), and admired the front yard sculpture exhibit the neighborhood is sponsoring. A date to Costco with a friend (I’m counting this! We walked, and we got out of the house.). A walk on our nearby trail with a friend, catching up. A walk around the block one evening after work with the family, watching the kids collect leaves and run ahead of us, a perfect post dinner Sunday evening activity for Summer.

I was initially hesitant to declare participation because I knew I was going into a busy month, but you know what? It is more doable than I anticipated. I was motivated to find those ten minute chunks, late at night, on my meal break, etc. And it also gave me an excuse to try to cajole my family along with me. I think there was one day the first week of April where I didn’t get out and walk/run/bike, but I probably could have squeezed in something. Sometimes it takes planning, but also sometimes it’s about realizing when you have a bit of empty space. Not that we have to fill up all the empty space in our lives, but I’ve realized that going for a walk is still a form of having empty space – it gives me time to think, or not think, to breathe, and work out a bit of restlessness. Ultimately, though, there is no failure here. We do what we can do.

Grateful For:

-The above mentioned chance for the 13 and 8 year olds to be Mystery Readers for the 5 year old’s class. Before we went, the 8 year old said that he was nervous, but he did a great job! He read Pigs to the Rescue and The Giving Tree. The 13 year old read Daddy Daughter Day and 100 Dragons Named Broccoli.

-the box of tempation at work:

It is filled with chocolate:

-Everyone at work who does such a great job to make the show look and sound so good.

-Parent coaches. Despite what I wrote last week about the fight between the two coaches at the 8 year old’s soccer game, I really believe parent coaches are doing amazing work. I watched the 8 year old’s practice last Thursday. Herding a bunch of 2nd graders seems like an exercise in frustration, but Coach Greg kept it together and managed everything so well.

-Carpools. The thirteen year old had a full day of activities on Saturday, and I didn’t have to drive her to anything thanks to carpools.

-That I still have a job. It seems like every week, there is a new round of layoffs at work.

-Zhong zi, and my mother for bringing them. When my mother was visiting in mid April she brought a whole bag of zhong zi. These are sticky rice balls, filled with meat and mushrooms and wrapped in bamboo leaves. They are one of my favorite Taiwanese foods. One day when the fridge was pretty bare since we’ve been behind in the shopping, I needed a quick lunch and found the bag of zhong zi. I steamed them up and we had them for lunch and it was the perfect low fuss meal.

-comfortable shoes. That match the carpet at work. A wonderful thing on days when I am on my feet all day.

-Other things that make tech week go well: lunch boxes and ice packs, the Husband, a comfortable bed, water bottles, the ginormous chocolate chip cookies from the canteen at work, monitors and a strong conductor’s down beat.

Looking Forward To:

-The 13 year old’s middle school musical. Opens this week. I’m really excited to see it.

-My parents are coming for a visit. They very rarely come see us together, so this feels kind of special.

-May! What a month. We have lots going on this month – the 5 year old is FINALLY getting baptized. The 8 year old has first communion. The weather is turning the corner from Spring into Summer. Farmer’s markets. Piano recitals. Voice recitals. Happy Hour and lunches with friends.

-Watching Season two of Andor as a family. Well, actually, watching season one of Andor as a family. I haven’t even seen the first season. I hear it’s really really really really really good.

-Reading this book, not sure what it’s about yet, but I find myself nodding along with a lot of its shrewd and cutting observations. And the chapters are short so it flies by.

What We Ate:
Monday: Lamb stew, from the freezer. Thank you again, past me.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. The Husband made chicken tacos

Wednesday: I had empanadas from the Farmer’s market since I was at work. This is the best part of being at work on Wednesday. I think the Husband made some kind of sausage skillet for the rest of the family.

Thursday: Dinner out with friends.

Friday: I had leftovers at work for an early dinner then went out with the stage managers after the show and had a truly decadent dinner – scallops, risotto, kale salad, fancy guava soda made from scratch, peanut butter pie for dessert. The Husband and kids had pizza (take out) and watched Smoky and the Bandit. (Which I have never seen myself.)

Saturday: Kitchen sink chopped cabbage salad with chicken. I was kind of at a loss for what to make, so I took a bunch of sad vegetables from the fridge (cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, red onion, avocado), chopped it up, added walnuts, olive oil, salt, pepper, and red wine vinegar. Threw in some shredded chicken and… dinner! It was tastier than it ought to have been given the despair I felt when I first opened the fridge.

Sunday: Egg/ Breakfast sandwiches. The Husband cooked because I was at work. I think I had toast and yogurt when I got home.

Hope you have a lovely week.
Do you have a Sunday reset? How was your April? What does May look like for you? What do you make for dinner when you are looking in despair at the fridge at 5pm? Do you feel like you are on a ladder or a lily pad?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Day in the Life

We are half way through tech week. I’m am exhausted, but it’s been a really smooth and productive tech process so far and everyone is working really well together, so that always feels good.

I was inspired by the Day in the Life post that Stephany (among others), so I thought I’d write one too. The last time I wrote one, it was a year ago, during tech week. This time, I thought I’d write about a typical rehearsal day – this is Monday April 21st. Of course it wasn’t a typical day because the kids were off school – they always get the Monday after Easter off.

7:15am – Wake up. This is a little later than usual, but I had stayed up way too late the night before to finish my book (Heartbreaker by Sarah McLean), and the kids didn’t have school, so there was no huge rush in the morning. The Husband took the day off to stay home with the kids today, so he was around. The kids get up pretty early on their own – usually 6:15a/6:30a. I have a vague early morning memory of one child standing next to the bed saying, “I’m hungry!” I told them to go to the kitchen and find something to eat. I get up, and make the bed. I’m not usually a linger in bed person. Once I’m done sleeping, I like to get out of bed. I pull clean sheets and put them on the bed because the cleaners are coming this morning and they will change the sheets.

7:30am- Family Meeting This s year we’ve started having weekly family meetings on Saturday at 7:30am, but the family was out of town last weekend, so we had our family meeting on Monday morning. Our family meeting format is:
-Shout outs
-Calendar
-Meal Planning
We used to also cover “agenda items” – issues that any family member wants to discuss. This would range from “Can I have X app on my phone?” to “Summer” to “My sister won’t play with me”, and often ended with someone storming off in anger. It was just a frustrating way to spend our Saturday morning, even though going over the calendar was important. Then I listened to this webinar on family meetings last week and picked up some good ideas to try: 1) shorter meetings, 2) shorter agenda, 3) take turning s leading the meeting. So we’ve taken problem solving agenda items off the family meeting plan in the hopes of making the meetings shorter, more efficient, and less emotionally fraught. The webinar said that family meetings are times to connect, and I really want to try to embrace that. (The webinar is from a local group called PEP – they lead all sorts of parenting classes and currently many of them are free to watch the webinar recording. I highly recommend them – I find their approach calming – they very much take a “parent as advisor/coach” approach to things.)

Family meeting tools: The three month calendar. Multi colour pens – each person gets a colour on the calendar. The red notebook is where we write shout outs and rose/buds/thorns. My Hobonichi weeks. And my phone.

9:00 – Family meeting over, move on with morning. I pack lunch for myself. It will be a long day at work, so I pack lots of food. I think I also made toast for the kids here too. Or maybe I made toast for them to eat during the family meeting. The cleaning people have arrived by now and they start in the basement. Usually we’re not home when the cleaners are here, but since the kids are off school, we work around each other.

Long day, lots of food.

9:30am – yoga/stretch. I’ve been doing really well at daily yoga. I really like Charlie Follows yoga. Since the cleaners are the basement, I do my yoga in the kids’ room without my yoga mat – it’s the only room that has a clear floor at the moment. At one point the Husband comes in to talk about some life admin details, and the kids come running in and out. It’s not a relaxing 15 minutes of yoga, but I’m not a meditative yoga sort of person. I just really want to move and stretch.

10:00am – life admin – Since I don’t have to be a work until later, I take some time to catch up on some computer errands – registration, paying bills, blog reading and comments, emails. I get dressed.

10:30am – I convince the 13 year old to go on a walk with me. It’s like pulling teeth, but I feel like if I don’t get her out of the house, she might not leave the house all day. We walk down to the trail and around the neighborhood.

Someone has been writing chalk messages on the path.

11:15a – back home and getting ready to go to work. When we get home I find the Husband in the backyard doing some gardening and the two little kids are hanging out with him. I start getting ready to go to work – since I don’t have to drive carpool today, I’ve decided to bike to work. I have to get my lunch box in my backpack, and an change of clothes. My sister in law calls while I’m packing to go to work. We talk two or three times a week – she lives in California and she usually calls as she’s walking to her bus which usually lines up with when I’m going to work if I have an afternoon rehearsal, so the time difference works out.

11:30a bike to work. I love that most of my bike commute is along a parkway, so the traffic is minimal and I can go for long stretches without a stop light. There is a big hill at the end. I don’t always make it up the hill, but this time I do! Yay!

The one busy road on my bike commute.

12:00n – arrive at work. change clothes

Then start my work day with some work at my desk – email, paperwork, putting cues in my score. Also checking in with the other stage managers. We have two shows going on right now, and since I’m the head of the department, I like to check in with the SM team on the other show when I can.

2:00pm – 5:00pm – first rehearsal of the day. This is an exciting day because we get to have a guitarist in rehearsal. We don’t usually get this but the guitar part is quite prominent in our show, so the conductor requested a few rehearsals in the room with the guitarist. The show also features a large electronica part- electronic music that is played on a keyboard. I didn’t get a picture, but it’s a very involved set up. At this rehearsal we work through the whole show with Principal singers.

The yellow Post It on the clock has our afternoon break schedule written on it so I don’t forget to break when we need to. Each of those green stickies is a light cue. This one particular section of the show is fiendishly difficult to call.

2:50pm- 15 minute rehearsal break. We typically rehearse 90 minutes then take a 15 minute break. Someone brought Levain cookies from New York and shares them during the break. My coworker and can’t decide which cookie to have so we each take one and split- oatmeal raisin and a chocolate chocolate chip.

Also on our break, we work on our team jigsaw puzzle. We usually have a puzzle going in the stage management office. We actually just started this one today:- it’s beautiful, the pieces are whimsical shapes:

Then we’re back at rehearsal, working through the show.

5:00pm – End of first rehearsal, Production meeting via Teams. Today is load in- when the tech team starts putting the set into the theatre. We have a brief meeting to check in to make sure all departments are on track for the final push to opening night.

5:30pm – Dinner. i eat my packed food, talk a walk, read a little bit of my book and do a ittle bit of the puzzle. Per union regulations, I get one hour for meal breaks which sometimes feels like a lot of time. (And some days not enough time…)

Bao, and sweet potato quinoa salad.

Sky on my walk.

6:30pm – 9:45pm – Second rehearsal. The evening rehearsal is with chorus. We only have 16 people in the chorus so it’s not too hectic. We work through all the chorus scenes.

Evening rehearsal- new Post It with evening break times.
There are a lot of rolling chairs in our show.

8:30p- rehearsal break! Puzzle and snacks. Then back to rehearsal.

9:45pm – 10:30pm – notes. After rehearsal the stage management team gathers to go over any notes that need to be relayed to other departments and then talk over the next day’s schedule. Tomorrow is a really light day- only one rehearsal in the evening.

10:30pm – Take metro home with my bike. I appreciate that I can take my bike on the metro outside of rush hour. I don’t appreciate that the metro elevator smells like pee.

Didn’t have to wait long for the train!
Train was pretty crowded at 11am because the hockey game had just gotten over.

11:00am – home. The metro is only four blocks home. It’s a beautifully warm evening and the road to the house is downhill and I love speeding down fast and coasting around the corner onto our street. So I do it twice. Two laps around the block with the wind in my face and then I pull in home.

I put away my lunch box, kiss the sleeping children, oil the cutting board, and spend a few minutes writing in my journal. Resisting the urge to revenge bedtime procrastinate I’m in bed by midnight.

Cool Bloggers’ Walking Club -I’m going to loosely interpret Elisabeth’s CBWC criteria as “get out of the house and move” because I didn’t do a lot of walking, per se, but I did:

Monday: bike to work + walk with the 13 year old (as detailed above)

Tuesday: bike to work

Wednesday: running

Thursday: dinner break walk the rooftop terrace at work (yet another picture of the Washington Monument)

Friday: Running on my dinner break.

Saturday: walk while the 13 year old was at voice lesson. There’s a meandering wooded trail. But if you look to the left, you’ll see we are right on a busy road.

I’m fascinated by deconstructed houses

Sunday: went ice skating while the kids were at lessons:

Grateful for:
-My work BFF brought me dill pickle chips! I might have eaten the whole bag in one sitting.

-The thirteen year old went on a walk with me!

-Beautiful weather.

-Parks and trails where I can enjoy the beautiful weather.

-Getting home safely at the end of a long rehearsal day. I’m going to be honest, driving home at 11:30/midnight is TOUGH.

-All the stage managers at work who gathered for an “Ask Me Anything” session with our two Production Assistants and shared their wisdom. The PAs are basically interns at the beginning of their career, so I like to have an AMA for them with the stage managers during their time with us. It’s voluntary for my staff, and I’m so grateful that all eight of the stage managers/assistant directors who were in town showed up to shared and support the PAs. Also they were all brutally honest about work life balance and the hard parts of being a stage manager, but also talked about why they loved the job too.

-My bike.

-Freezer leftovers for a low mental energy dinner. Thank you to past me.

-School and Teachers. Nothing makes one more grateful for schools and teachers than ten days at home with the kids over spring break. To be fair, I worked for much of those ten days.

-On that note, I’m also really grateful to the Husband for spending 10 days with the kids while trying to work from home and having a truly terrible hotel experience when he tried to take the kids out of town. (What kind of hotel still claims the rooms are unavailable because they are being cleaned at 8PM??!??!?!?) Also – grateful to the Husband who took the 8 year old to his soccer game, finally. And a shouting match broke out between the parent coaches. He says it was wild. I’m glad I wasn’t there, but also part of me wishes I had brought popcorn. The Husband had all the fun things to deal with last week.

Looking Forward To:
-Sleeping. Once tech week is over, I’m going to take a long nap.

-Evenings at home. I get to be home two nights next week. Yay!

-Mystery reader. You can sign up to read to my 5 year old’s preschool class. So we are doing that this week. I’m actually going to have the 8 year old and the 13 year old read. It’s not a big mystery because the 8 year old was so excited he has already told his sister.

-listening to this book on my commute:

What We Ate: I’m going to be honest – I ate mostly leftovers from the fridge because I was at work most nights. This is what I think the family ate, big thanks to the Husband.

Monday: Cabbage Soup from the freezer. Thank you Past Me.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Carnitas from the freezer. Thank you Past Me.

Wednesday: No idea.

Thursday: Tofu and noodles. I prepped tofu crumbles for the Husband in the morning and he sauteed vegetables to go with it.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Frozen.

Saturday: Nachos with the leftover carnitas from Tuesday.

Sunday: Bahn Mi bowls, using the leftover tofu crumbles. This recipe, but with tofu instead of pork, and noodles instead of cauliflower rice. Love this recipe – it is tasty and comes together super quickly.

Weekly recap + What We Ate: What I wore, the cold spring edition

I’ve been thinking about fashion and appearances lately. First of all last week, I listened to an Edit Your Life episode featuring an interview with personal stylist Dacy Gillespie. Gillespie and Christine Koh had a really deep conversation about body image. “At what point,” Gillespie says, “did we get the idea that our bodies were wrong?” And I think that’s such a powerful thing to contemplate, this idea that “flattering” is a construct and we don’t need to subscribe to that construct. There is nothing “wrong” not “not ideal” about our bodies. Dressing in something flattering, she says, is just “prioritizing someone else’s opinion.”

Another thing she says: “Generally, we don’t have much control over the shape of our body. However, based on our shape, we’re being told to wear certain clothing items.”

Take the idea that “This shirt is flattering because the colours make your skin glow.” I mean that’s all well and good, but what if I like a colour that doesn’t make my skin glow? Am I going to just not wear my favorite colour? It’s all a personal choice, for sure, but the way fashion/style is so tied to societal ideals of what a person should look like, just feels like we might be denying ourselves of a bit of fun and enjoyment in clothes. Or if an item of clothing makes you feel good and confident, what does it matter if it isn’t slimming? It’s a bit chicken and egg, right? A dress makes you feel confident because it is slimming, but where does this idea that slim is better come from? Also, subscribing to what mainstream media is saying what a person should look like seems impossible when bodies are constantly changing. Maybe I had an ideal body in my 20s, but expecting 46 year old me to look like 20 year old me is just unrealistic. I think the Gillespie and Koh have a really empowering discussion and it’s worth a listen.

Soon after I listened to that episode, Nicole had a post, inspired by Cup Of Jo, called Tell Me Something Beautiful About You, where she muses about self-love and confidence and why it is so difficult to say what we love about the way we look. As always, her post is inspiring and beautiful and lifts us all up. And the comments were so wonderfully honest. I suspect if you read my blog, you already read Nicole’s, but if you don’t you need to go read it now, and all the comments, and ponder the question she asks – “What do you like about the way you look?”

I wrote a comment about how two of the things I liked the most about myself were things I got teased about when I was little. I’ve always really liked my mouth because my lips are naturally plump and red. But when I was growing up, kids at school would refer to my lips with a racial slur. And this was okay back then. I mean it’s not okay. It’s never okay. But no one ever called the kids out on it. All it made me do was suck in my lower lip so that it wasn’t so noticeable. The other thing I’ve always liked about myself are my eyes, but again, I feel weird saying that because there’s a lot of baggage that comes with Asian eyes and standards of beauty. This is the stupid part – even though I have big round eyes, the kids at school would still tease me and pull their eyes into little slants when talking about me. What the what??? My mother always said she liked my eyes because they were so big and round. And there is kind of an implication that eyes that aren’t big and round are less appealing. That’s the tricky thing about finding something appealing – I feel like society is set up in some kind of dichotomy where if X is considered attractive, the opposite of X is considered not attractive. When really a) it’s all subjective, and b) shouldn’t what we like about people be “and” not “or”? I love that Nicole gave us space to shout out the things about ourselves that make up feel good about ourselves while acknowledging that everyone is different and beautiful.

And this is what I want to say – I like your face. You can break it down into what features I like about your face, but really I like your face because it belongs to you. It isn’t that you have big eyes or button nose or plump lips. I like your face because through it shines everything you are.

Anyhow, Nicole asked for selfies, and I’m providing selfies, well pictures of myself. I was percolating this post for a while – I like to do a week of outfits once in a while – but the confluence of Nicole’s post and the Edit Your Life episode kind of made it feel like a fitting time to do another in this series.

This is the outfits from the my first week of rehearsals. When I’m in rehearsal and tech, I plan my outfits out on Sunday for the week, so I don’t have to think about it in the morning. This week, I thought the weather would be warm and sunny, and well, even though March went out like a lamb, April came back in like a lion so not everything I wore was something I picked out on Sunday.

Monday, First Day of Rehearsal:

I forgot to take a picture at work because the first day was very busy, so here it is on the hanger in the bathroom. (I take my pictures at work because we don’t have a full length mirror at our house. I would like to change this, but there’s no good place to put/hang a full length mirror.) Wool& tank dress and a Eileen Fisher jacket. I also wore black leggings and tan ankle boots, my checked cap, and a scarf. I know no one wears scarves as accessories anymore, but I still love wearing them. Plus is was really cold that day. I wear this outfit every first day of rehearsal, kind of like a ritual uniform. I think the jacket makes it looks a little more business like – or at least what passes as business like in my world. I love that jacket – it goes with anything. I’ve worn it with sweatpants and managed not to look like I was wearing sweatpants.

Tuesday:

Blue Wool& dress (Sienna), Sweater from Uniqlo, puffer vest from Uniqlo, knit cap (present from a chorister twenty years ago – I didn’t like this hat when it was first given to me, but now I wear it all the time.), black leggings, blue boots. I love those boots.

Wednesday:

This was an outfit that I had picked out when I though it would be warmer, but it ended up being super cold, so I added the sweater and the hat. Cotton gauze Old Navy wide pants (bought last summer and love them so much – would wear them all the time if I could), striped long sleeve t-shirt from Duluth Trading Company, Zip up hoodie sweater from DKNY (I’ve had this sweater for twenty years, bought it at an outlet mall outside of Denver. For many years I didn’t wear it because it is quite short and would always hit me funny. But then I started wearing high waisted pants and suddenly this sweater is perfect!), hat from Duluth (last minute hat addition when I realized it was almost the same colour as the pants). Shoes are wool runners from Giesswein. I had a pair of Allbirds that I wore all the time, but the Allbirds no longer come in fun colours, so in my search for wool shoes, I found these. I find them more supportive than Allbirds, especially for the balls of my feet.

Thursday:

I’m wearing pants! It must be very cold if I’m wearing pants. I think my original outfit was a dress. Same green hat as on Tuesday. Striped shirt from H&M, bought years ago when I was pregnant and trying not to show. It’s not technically a maternity shirt, but it does have a very boxy cut. Uniqlo puffer vest. Pants are from Duluth Trading Company, the cotton version of the NoGa pants. They are very soft and stretchy and, yes, could probably pass for yoga pants. Shoes – red Giesswein runners. I liked the Giesswein shoes so much I ordered them in two colours.

Friday:

This was a rainy rainy day. This was again not the outfit I had planned to wear, but given the rainy weather, I did not want to wear a dress to work.
Black gap maternity long sleeve t-shirt (another maternity item that I still wear), Duluth overalls in a fox print. (These are the grown up version of the overalls that the 5 year old has.) Purple DKNY sweater (same as Wednesday.) Rain boots (I think they’re Bogs?). I’m so glad I work somewhere where I can wear overalls and rain boots to work.

Saturday:

Black and white cap (Also worn on Monday), Mushroom and gnome print shirt from Duluth Trading Company, Uniqlo vest (this is definitely in my “20% of my wardrobe worn 80% of the time” pile.), Red Wool& tank dress (Same as worn on Monday – I love the Wool& dresses because I can wear them several times a week and they can be styled so differently. Also I don’t need to wash them after every wear, so they are very easy.), black leggings, blue boots. I think I wore this same outfit in one of my outfits of the week post last fall.

Sunday: Day off. I don’t have a picture of Sunday – again, no full length mirror at home. I wore my blue tie dye sweat pants, a red tank top and a red plaid flannel. Clearly it was a day at home.

That’s it – What Diane wore in one week, the unexpectedly chilly Spring Edition. One thing I’ll say, as I look back on these photos, is that I genuinely like and feel comfortable in everything that I wore that week, and indeed most of my wardrobe. If I don’t feel comfortable in it, or feel “meh” about it, then it doesn’t belong in my closet. I think last year I wrote about my three style words, and they were Colourful, effortless, and playful. I still feel like that’s how I dress, “flattering” be damned.

Cool Bloggers Walking Club: unofficially The kids were on spring break last week, so I took the metro or rode my bike to work for most of the week. (When they are in school, I tend to drive since I have to drive to the bus stop anyway). So I had lots of walks to and from the Metro Station. I also went down to the Mall again with my Uncle and Mother- this time we walked to the MLK and FDR Memorials.

Kite stuck in tree. Made me laugh.
Tulip garden by the Tidal Basin.

Snapshots from my commute – 7 walk to metro, 10 minute metro ride, 7 walk to work on the other side. I think this falls into the “every little bit counts” column of CBWC. Here are some very boring images from my commute.

Very dangerous crosswalk.
Commuting in my blue boots.
I love this mural you see as you are coming down the escalator.
Metro station at night, on my way home from work.

Walk to park with kids on Easter Sunday while they biked/scootered. Cherry blossom season has passed into sakura-fubuki stage. Literally means “Cherry blossom snow storm” – it’s when the wind blows the blossoms off the trees and it makes a delightful snow of petals. The Japanese have many phrases for the various phases of cherry blossom season.

Blossom snowfall.
Kids zooming ahead. I can’t keep up.
Bike sculpture in the park.

Walks around the block with my co-workers. There are these random swings. I always want to stop and swing, but never do. Some day.

Grateful For:

-A borrowed umbrella and the rain letting up just in time for me to walk home from the Metro.

-My mother’s visit.

-Shorts and t-shirt weather. Warm air in the evening.

-A car free day and the bike and Metro that made it possible.

-Lilac bushes in our backyard. They smell so lovely. Makes me take a pause to inhale. (I realize this is the third week in a row that I’ve written about a lovely smell… there’s something to that, maybe.)

-That I don’t have to wipe my kids’ butts anymore. Usually. We were at a restaurant and one kid had to go #2 and I was really grateful that I could just send her into the stall by herself. I will admit though, the universe laughed at me and that very night I was roused at midnight later that day because a child had a poop explosion in bed. But even still – I can’t remember the last time I had to clean up a poop mess, so I’m still sticking to being grateful for this.

-The Husband taking the kids away. Last week was spring break. The Husband worked from home most of the week and then took the kids away on an overnight with my mother. Our schools are also closed the Monday after Easter, so the Husband had TEN DAYS with the kids while I worked evenings and Saturdays. So grateful that he was holding it down on the home front. I think he deserves a month of hermit time after this.

Looking Forward To:

-Freakonomics Radio is doing a series where it looks at live theatre. The first episode is called “How is Live Theatre still Alive?“. Of course, as someone who works in live theatre/ opera, I am very much interested in this question. Opera is expensive, and sometimes I question my life choices and wonder if I’ll be able to do this until I retire. (Though honestly with everything going on in DC these days I’m wondering if I’ll be doing this next year…) I’m really excited to hear Freakonomics get into the nitty gritty of where the money in theatre comes from and where it goes.

-Tech! It’s tech this week! I’m a little nervous about this show – there are some very difficult sections of light cues to call. But I’m excited to be in the theatre, so see the work we’ve been doing in a rehearsal room on a taped floor with music stands and rehearsal cubes comes to life with sets and costumes and lighting. I’ve planned my clothes for the week. I have lots of leftovers/ meals in the fridge. I’m looking forward to running along the Potomac on my dinner break. I’m telling myself that I’m looking forward to going to bed without revenge bedtime procrastination – because if I tell myself then, maybe I’ll do it.

-I finally got a hold of someone who placed the 8 year old on a soccer team. I’m a little nervous because he’s not going to know anyone because he’ll be playing in a different part of town than his last team, but I’m excited that he’ll get to be out on the pitch again.

-Speaking of tech it also means a longer commute, so I’m looking forward to diving into a new audiobook. I’m almost done my audiobook so I need a new one since my commute to the theatre is longer than my commute to the rehearsal space. I generally like fast moving, gripping fiction for my tech week, something to keep me engaged when my brain is fried. Suggestions welcome!

What We Ate:

Monday: Eggplant and Pork stir fry with Udon noodles – The Husband cooked. I ate some leftovers when I got home and it was really delicious. I made myself a sweet potato and quinoa salad to eat at work and all week. Loosely based on this recipe from Pinch of Yum, but I didn’t have chickpeas so I threw in a can of cannelini beans with the quinoa.

Tuesday: Shrimp tacos. I wasn’t home that night, but I prepped the shrimp so the Husband cooked them and some chicken when he got home.

Wednesday: Spaghetti and meatballs. The 13 year old made dinner, including making the meatballs from scratch. I’m really proud of her- I pulled out the basic recipe from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, she and the Husband made a shopping list, and then he sent to the store with his credit card. She walked to the store and bought all the ingredients herself (she was really proud that she resisted the temptation to buy chips or candy – I’m proud of her too and I split a bag of Vicky’s Spicy Dill pickle chips with her later that evening as a celebration.). Then she came home and made dinner. I ate some when I got home from work and it wasn’t bad.

Thursday: The Husband took the kids out of town. I had leftover spaghetti and meat sauce when I got home from work.

Friday: Cabbage Soup. I made a big batch of kitchen sink cabbage soup on Thursday night after I got home from work – hopefully enough for a few meals during tech for me and for the family to reheat and eat one night while I’m working. Anyhow, I took a container to work to eat on Friday. Vegan.

Saturday: The rest of the family were camping to celebrate a friends’ birthday party. They had had some Thai food for lunch so I ate that for dinner when I got home from work at 9pm.

Sunday: Easter Dinner! We had a low key Easter. We went to 8:30 Mass, which to my surprise, was half in Bangla. Our church has masses in French, English, and Spanish because there is a large immigrant community in our congregation. On Easter Sunday, the 8:30am Mass was also in Bangla, which I wasn’t expecting, but which was actually a nice surprise. Half the homily and readings were in Bangla. There was also Bangla music a few times throughout the service, which made for a really fun change of pace. I loved seeing all the women coming to church dressed up in their saris on Easter Sunday – all jewel tones with gold trim, silken fabric wafting as they walked.

After Mass, we went out to brunch at Denny’s. We have a family tradition of going to IHOP of Denny’s or some diner for Easter brunch after church. Then we came home, looked for Easter Eggs and cleaned the house a little bit. After that, we went to the park with the two little kids – the 13 year old was in hermit mood and stayed home – the kids biked and scootered. We ended up running into some friends at the park. Then we came home and I cooked Easter dinner. After dinner, everyone cleaned up the kitchen and had showers and we finished out the evening by watching Bluey and eating chocolate pudding. Not too busy, but a good combination of activities, I think.
The Easter Menu: Ham (baked in Guinness with a brown sugar coating), marinated zucchini (this recipe, but I grilled the zucchini rather than fry it), broccoli quinoa salad, pull apart Challah rolls (I chose these over the Hawaiian roles because I like the texture better, even though they taste similar). For dessert, I made Smitten Kitchen’s Best Chocolate Pudding – I love this recipe because it is easy and fast and I almost always have the ingredients on hand so I can make it when I need a last minute family dessert that also feels special.

Hope you all have a great week!
Has Spring arrive yet for you? What is your “20%/ 80%” item in your closet? Do you have anything that you recently rediscovered in your closet? What’s the first meal you remember making and how old were you? What else should the 13 year old make?

Haikus for March 2025

Bitter winds blowing
In like a lion indeed.
Where is last week’s warmth?

Oh Hello, Robin!
You’ve come back, bringing sunshine
As snow melts away.

Cuddles with my kids,
moments of stillness and love.
The eye of the storm.

Robins hop and sing,
Joyfully welcome spring,
Dancing like my heart.

She trails green branches
A silk train? a dragon’s tail?
Wings so she can fly?

March blows cold then hot.
What do I wear for my date
with this fickle friend?

You have arrived home,
Yet you still sit in the car.
Because it’s quiet here.

Despite my short list,
All the pretty shiny things
End up in my cart.

These gnarled tree branches
push forth blossoms each spring –
New growth from the old.

Is the weather fickle where you are?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to work and Six Things Sunday

I’m back in rehearsal for a show. I’m lukewarm on the show, but I’m having a really good time with the people I’m working with. I think if I got to choose, I’d rather work with good people than on good opera. It reminds me of something that I once read Nicole Kidman say where she picks projects based on the director rather than the material because she has very little control over what the final film will be like, so she prioritizes having a fulfilling working experience. All to say, I’m glad to be back in the rehearsal room creating opera with people with whom I look forward to seeing every day. At the same time, I’m feeling a little tapped right now. I really don’t know how people managed to work full time and take care of life at the same time. The good news is I’ve signed off on our taxes, so that pressing issue is finished. But all the little life admin stuff – registration, calendar checking, decluttering, organizing – all that has fallen by the wayside.

To be honest, though, when I look at my day, I don’t think my growing life admin list is because I don’t have the time to do these things. There is always time, right? It’s just what does my brain feel up to in those bits of time when I’m not at work or trying to get the kids fed and out the door? It certainly isn’t life admin. Take for example, sleep. I always tell myself that I will just go straight to bed when I come home late at night after a rehearsal, but lately I’ve been coming home, eating all the snacks and scrolling until 1am. I’m not even doing things that fill my bucket like reading or journaling or scrolling. Or really, I should just be sleeping. And then it makes the morning come too soon and I’m dragging. It’s kind of a bummer habit I need to get out of.

Another case in point, this was originally going to be a five thing Friday brain dump, but now it is a Six on a Sunday post because I decided to scroll rather than blog on Friday night. Which, I know I feel better writing than scrolling, but I just find it hard to find the motivation and get back into a rhythm when I have to be at work 8 or 9 hours a day.

Three Bummer Things:
-An awful commute. One day, I forgot my phone at home, so after school drop off, I went home to get it and decided to take the “short” way to work. The “short” way is the Google Maps way. It is usually shorter, but it goes through a busy area, so the route can also be not so short. (My usual way to work takes 17 minutes, and it is down a parkway so it is much more predictable. The “short” way takes 15 minutes, which, now that I’ve typed that out, I find myself thinking, “Do those two minutes really matter?” I guess in my head one is “15 minutes” and one is “almost 20 minutes.”). Anyhow, the “short” was not short that day – there was more traffic than usual, and I ended up being stuck behind a big white truck that moved slowly. I think that can be a metaphor for our times – Stuck behind a big white truck and unable to see what is ahead. Anyhow, I finally got to work, but since, in an effort to get out from behind that big white truck, I came at our parking lot in a different direction than I was used to and I hit an unseen small bit of fencing pole that was poking up from the ground. There is now a huge dent/scratch in the car. UGH! An excellent way to end a hideous commute. I’ve refrained from taking the “faster” route since then.

-Not being able to find Cadbury mini eggs anywhere. C’mon, World! It’s still a week before Easter- why is EVERYWHERE out of these?

-The soccer league I signed the eight year old up for still hasn’t put him on a team, and the season started three weeks ago. I’ve written and called and all I get is that they are still working on it. I would normally just ask for my money back, but the 8 year old really wants to play soccer this spring. The issue is that the team he played on last fall was disbanded because they couldn’t find a coach. I feel a little bit of guilt on this issue because 1) I did sign him up a month after registration opened (but still three weeks before the season), and 2) I didn’t volunteer to coach when they asked me. I work a lot of Saturdays so coaching would have been tough, but I could have coached practices.

Three Delightful things:

– Friday’s swim lessons- two things delightful: 1) the five year old moved up one swim level and I was able to get her in the next class. Registering for county swim class is a little like Hunger Games here, so I was amazed that I could get her into the class. And 2) I ran into a mom friend at the pool who I hadn’t seen in over a year. It was nice to catch up and we’ve made plans to make plans in May after my show closes.

-organizing my pencil pouch and post it box. Getting rid of all the writing implements that I don’t use and having only the things I know and love and find useful in my pencil pouch.

Some day I will write a super geeky post about all my favorite office supplies I use for work.

-The clean smell of laundry coming from the dryer vents. As I was walking up the front walk late one night after work, the air smelled of clean clothes and soap- our dryer vents to the front of the house. I always love the smell of clean laundry coming from a dryer vent. Even when I’m out on a walk, and I smell warm laundry air from a random house, I inhale and feel so peaceful.

– One bonus thing ( which will make it Seven for Sunday, even though it’s now Monday)- the eight year old doing laundry. He has a favorite outfit, and one day we came home to laundry going. In the machine was a single pair of pants and a single shirt. Delight at him doing his own laundry co-existed with annoyance that he did a whole cycle for two items of clothing. It was a teaching moment for sure.

Grateful For:

-Group efforts to move a desk. Last fall, I realized that we had 11 stage managers coming in this spring and only 10 desks. But Fall 2024 Diane said to herself, “I’ll worry about that later” Welp a week and half ago “later” came and I realized that I would have to figure out how to get an 11th desk into the Stage Management Office. I’m really grateful for my work colleagues who helped me find a desk and rearrange the office to make room for the desk (while at the same time doing a major purge and decluttering of our space.). Also – the new desk is kind of small and doesn’t have drawers, so one of my co-workers made a drawer:

-People who plant flowers in their yards, bringing colour and beauty to my walks around the neighborhood. The tulips are coming out in full vibrant force and I love it.

-An evening at home. They will be few and far between in April, so I’m grateful for the few evenings I do get to come home before bedtime.

-The Husband for covering the evenings and the day the kids were off school.

-Past me for freezing soup. That feeling of panic and despair when I realize there is nothing in the fridge to take for lunch. Then the feeling of relief and excitement when I realize there is soup from January frozen in pint sized mason jars, ready to be tossed into my lunchbox and taken to work for lunch.

– My coworker who put air in my bike tires. My bike has been sitting at work for the past six months. I rode it to work one day and then for whatever reason did ‘t ride it home. And then it was winter. But now it is nice enough for me to bike again so 8’m looking forward to getting on the Ike again, only the tires were flat. I could bring my pump fr9m home, but my coworker said she had an electric pump in her car, so she pumped up my tires for me, Yay!

-Cool Blogger’s Walking Club, thanks to Elisabeth. I haven’t really officially declared participation because I don’t like failing at things I vow to do publicly, and this month is kind of optimal month for me to fail at walking every day. But knowing that CBWC is happening is a little bit of extra motivation to walk. Last week, my walks were mostly a quick walk around the block on my dinner break, or a walk to get coffee before rehearsal. A couple times, I embraced the “9pm post kids in bed” walk and walked loops around my block after dark. One time I even convinced the 13 year old to come on one of those late night walks. One day I walked one loop around the running track at school after drop off. Another day I meant to walk after I dropped the kids at the bus, but then I crossed paths with a fellow parent friend who used to work for USAID and I figured catching up with him was more important than a walk. (Though I guess I could have suggested that he walk with me.) And then today my uncle and mother are in town and we went down to the Mall and walked from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the Air and Space Museum – DC is such a pretty city to walk in.

Looking Forward To:
-Kielbasa. The oldest and I stopped at The Kielbasa factory on Sunday. It’s a small mom and pop kind of place in a strip mall, just wide enough for one line of people to the deli/kielbasa case and one line of people at the cash register. We brought home three different kinds of Kielbasa. So looking forward to eating it. (Note – we did eat it, and it was delicious. I still have a tub of sauerkraut in the fridge, though. Some nights I come home and just eat that out of the container, it’s so good.)

-Spring Break. This coming up week is Spring Break. I have to work, so I’m not going anywhere, but the Husband is taking the kids away on an overnight. I’ll have the house blissfully quiet to myself for 36 hours or so. Of course I have to work for 20 of those hours, and sleep for 7 of those hours, so it’s not a wide swath of alone time. But it’s something. Certainly more than the Husband is getting.

-Final meeting of my women’s Lenten group – This also already happened, and it was such a wonderful meeting. They are talking about making this into a monthly meet up, which I would love. Would also give me time to actually finish the Lenten readings. I do think they are meaningful all year round, not just at Lent.

-Using my new Boba straw. We went for boba tonight and we got a free gift with our order! A reusable boba straw. I’ve been wanting one for a while now and I’m so excited to get to use it!

What We Ate (I seem to have two weeks of meals to account for…):
Monday: Butter pasta and green beans. I would like for the 13 year old to help with dinner more, so I asked her to make dinner one night this week. Monday seemed like a good choice since there wasn’t any school anyway. She wanted to make butter pasta, which in my mind is very similar to the blue box of mac n cheese she frequently makes. I asked if she had a recipe and she said, “I was going to cook the pasta and add butter until it looked good.” I understand there was also copious amounts of parmesan cheese as well. I didn’t get any because it was all gone by the time I got home from work. So I guess that’s good? The green beans were take out from our favorite dumpling restaurant. (On the plus side, even though there was no butter pasta left for me, the family did save me dumplings and noodles from the dumpling place.)

Tuesday: Middle School Tacos. I found the name of this recipe to be hilarious, and these were legit delicious. This is the classics taco in the hard shell with sour cream, ice berg lettuce, tomatoes and cheese. Funny story – I wrote “lettuce” on the grocery list, and the Husband asked, “What kind of lettuce?” and I said, “Taco lettuce” and he came home with a cabbage. Because every other taco Tuesday we’ve had cabbage with our tacos. But middle school tacos demand iceberg lettuce. So the Husband brought home an head of iceberg lettuce which, not to be a snob, but I don’t remember the last time we had ice berg lettuce. But once we tasted the tacos, we all agreed, ice berg lettuce was the right and only choice.

Wednesday: Waffles and eggs. The Husband cooked because I worked late.

Thursday: Tortilla soup from last week, taken from the freezer.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made) and National Treasure. I hadn’t seen all of National Treasure before – what a fun movie. Plot holes galore, but very entertaining nonetheless.

Saturday: The kids had pizza at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. The Husband had take out. Not sure what the 13 year old ate. I ate last week’s salmon and miso rice leftovers from the fridge when I got home from work.

Sunday: Chicken salad and apple slices. Our typical snack/scrounge Sunday dinner. I also had a beet and cucumber salad – diced raw beets, diced cucumber, olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper, and dill. It was a tasty salad. We have some beets to use up from our friend’s CSA – I might packed this salad for many lunches this week.

Monday: White Bean Parmesan Soup. From the freezer. I can’t remember when I originally made it. Tasty and hearty.

Tuesday: Turkey Tacos – The Husband cooked since I was at work.

Wednesday: Tortellini and Kielbasa. I had leftovers at work, but when I came home there was a two inch piece of Kielbasa on the counter that the family had left for me.

Thursday: Dinner out with a friend at a local Mexican restaurant. I had ceviche and a horchata.

Friday: Pizza (ordered out) and movie night. They watched one of the Star Wars movies. I had the beet and cucumber salad at work, adding chickpeas for bulk.

Saturday: Kielbasa, green beans, and pan fried gnocchi. The Husband cooked and I think sometimes his strategy is “Put yummy food on the table and get it out of the fridge.” It was still tasty. My mother and uncle arrived later that evening, so I boiled some dumplings for them.

Sunday: Hot Pot. My uncle and mother are visiting so we went to our favorite hot pot place. I tried a new to me spicy broth – it was really tasty, but I don’t think I want all my food to be spicy, so I might not order it again. We really like this hot pot place – it’s our go to restaurant when we have visitors from out of town because it feels kind of special and it can accommodate a variety of diets.

Hope you have a sunny week!
Do you have a go to restaurant where you take guests when they come visit? Are you participating in the Cool Blogger’s Walking Club? If you blog, do you have a rhythm or routine to writing?

Books Read, March 2025

I read more books on audio than in print last month. I guess that meant I did a lot of walking and driving and tedious house chores in March.

The Door to Door Bookstore by Carsten Sebastian Henn, translated by Melody Shaw, read by Raphael Corkhill -Karl Kollhoff works at a bookstore, delivering books to book lovers who can’t make it to the bookstore. Along the way he is befriended by a 9 year old girl. When the owner of the bookstore dies and his daughter takes over, Karl’s job is in danger. This book was such a bookish comfort read. Slight and predictable, but charming nonetheless, it’s one of those books clearly written by someone who loves to read. Karl gives all of his customers literary nick names and spends time choosing just the right book for them to read. I loved all the literary references sprinkled throughout -it always makes me feel smart to get literary references in books.

My Name is Phillipa by Phillipa Ryder, read by Jackie Meloche– Memoir of a trans woman who grew up as a boy in 1960s Ireland, got married, became a father, and then in her 30s discovered a community of LGBTQ+ people who helped her embrace who she really was. Ryder writes of her journey to transition, including how her wife and daughter handled her transition. Remarkably drama free, which I think is the point. At the core, Phillipa Ryder’s story isn’t any different from anyone else’s story of falling in love with someone and then wondering how to make life work when things change. My one big complaint was that the audiobook narrator did not have an Irish accent. I did feel kind of cheated on that score.

The Worst Duke Ever by Lisa Berne – This book tells about penniless Jane Kent, who discovers that she is the long lost illegitimate granddaughter of the high born Penhallow family (the family is the basis of this romance series). She is taken in by the Penhallows and soon meets the neighboring Duke of Radcliffe and his precocious son. I picked up this book because the blurb described the Duke of Radcliffe as just wanting to stay home and tend to his pigs. I was kind of ready for a non-alpha male romantic hero, and a Duke who wanted to stay home and tend to his pigs seemed to fit that bill. But, friends, this book was so dull. The pigs and pugs and kids were cute, but there was no real conflict or romantic tension to the story. Jane and the Duke liked each other from the start – I do like when the main character like each other, but there was no real reason they couldn’t be together. The whole thing was just… pleasant. Which is fine, but I want a bit of angst in my romance novels. Oh well. If you like cute animal antic, though, you might like this book more than I did.

Shakespeare: the Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendon O’Hea, read by Barbara Flynn, Brendon O’Hea and Judi Dench – I loved this book. Love, love, loved it. It’s basically Dench and O’Hea sitting around talking about theatre life and Shakespeare. Listening to them chatter is like being invited over for tea and stories – it’s like a combination of juicy memoir and English seminar. Dench herself doesn’t narrate, but she does read Shakespeare passages that begin each chapter, and Barbara Flynn sounds so much like Judi Dench. As an audiobook bonus, though, there is a recording of a conversation between O’Hea and Dench and they squabble like two crotchety old geese and it’s delightful. Dench has so many fascinating things to say about Shakespeare, about how to say a line, about how she develops characters, about how Shakespeare crafted a story, crafted people onstage, crafted language. There were moments when I gasped at an insight she had about a play that I thought I knew very well. So many good quotes in the book. At one point, she says that she prefers theatre over film because in theatre, you have a chance every night to do better. Oh another of my favorite quotes was about being a professional even when you’re young and nervous. “Everyone’s nervous,” she says, “It’s not your business to make more of it.” Man I wish someone would embroider that on a pillow and hand it to every singer I know. Highly recommend if you like Shakespeare. I listened to this book, but I would also have loved to have a hard copy so I could highlight passages.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois by  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers– if you are looking for a 600+ page book by a female person of colour, this might fit the bill. This novel tells the story of Ailey Garfield, growing up in Brooklyn, but spending summers in the small town in Georgia where her ancestors were cheated out of their land and kept as slaves. Concurrently, the story of those ancestors unfold, telling about how Indigenous, White, and Black people were irrevocably intertwined. The generational aspect of the story reminded me a little of Homegoing, with more in depth story lines. I will say two thirds of the book was a well written, but kind of a meandering plot as Ailey tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life. But once she goes to college and decides to study history, I thought the story really took off, with Ailey becoming quite a page turner. Interestingly, I don’t read a lot of long books, but three of the 600+ page reads I’ve read have been set in academia with parallel past and present story lines. – this one, The Weight of Ink, and Possession. They were all very good books – academic research is more exciting that I would have thought.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix read by Bahni Turpin – This novel tells the story of Patricia Campbell, mother of two, husband to a prominent physiatrist, true-crime bookclub member. When a handsome neighbor moves to their small town, eyebrows and questions are raised. I thought this book was quite fun for the first half, gory and frustrating for the second half, and then it went off the rails at the end. But then again, I guess one would be hard put to find a vampire novel that doesn’t go off the rails at some point if you want the vampire dead. Horror novels are not at all my usual fare, so I can’t say if this was a good horror novel. I’m not sure where I got the suggestion from – perhaps it was 85% the fact that I enjoy Bahni Turpin as an audiobook narrator. The blurb calls it: “Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula“. Hmmmm… I guess there’s a lot of truth in that. There is a satirical twist to it, and I laughed out loud a lot. But I also got grossed out a lot, though I’m pretty sensitive to squicky things in books.

Okay, here is where I check my biases, though. Because Bahni Turpin reads this book, I was convinced that the book was about a group of black women. It is not. Also because of the way Hendrix writes about the experience of being a stay at home mom with such weary humour, I assumed Hendrix was a female. He is not. I kind of felt a little cheated that I was reading a book by a White male. Not sure how to unpack that one. Women don’t hold a monopoly at writing astute portraits of suburban moms, of course, but I do feel a little duped. This is why I shouldn’t google author’s until after I’ve read their book.

On my Proverbial Night Stand:
Master, Slave, Husband, Wife by Ilyon Woo – sshhhhh… don’t tell, this book was due back at the library two weeks ago, but I’m need to finish it, so I’m just ignoring those emails from the library.

Briefly Perfectly Human by Alua Arthur – the memoirs of a death doula.

The Earl Who Isn’t by Courtney Milan – Wedgeford Trails, book 3. I’m a sucker for historical romances featuring Asian characters. And Milan writes such smart books.

What was your favorite read in March? Have you ever googled an author and been disappointed? Do you have a favorite Shakespeare play?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye, March and opera season resolutions

There goes March. It certainly went out like a lamb with a wonderful 70 degree weekend.

The highlight of my last week of March was going down to see the cherry blossoms. I went on a Thursday morning since I didn’t have to be at work. It was still two days shy of peak bloom, but the trees were still beautiful. Things I want to remember:
-an artist with an easel set up, painting. It made me long to get my paints out as well.
-a couple posing for pictures – her in a pretty pink dress, him in a matching jacket. As I walked past them, I heard the person behind me mutter, “I bet she bought that jacket for him and made him wear it.”
-The Japanese tourist with the most elegant pink felt cloche with lace flowers on it, a long pink sweater coat, and delicately pleated pink pants.
-The free music on the Tidal Basin stage – A couple of singers from The South East Asian Performing Arts Network who sang songs in both Bengali and English – a really fun mash up. And their voices were amazing.
-The dad trying to take a picture of his two little girls, maybe 5 and 8 years old. The little girls had cherry blossom head bands on and the youngest one clearly wasn’t having it as the dad posed them and tried to get them to smile. Then the older child pulls her little sister into a hug and says, “If you smile, dad will buy us ice cream.”

I wandered along the Tidal Basin and then found a bench and sat and read my book and ate my trail mix for a little bit while watching the people walk by. One of the things I love about people watching during cherry blossom season is seeing the wonder and joy of people who are seeing the blossoms for the first time. And many for the only time. Going to see the cherry blossoms always makes me think of my grandmother because she had always wanted to come to DC during cherry blossom season and never got to.

March Lowlights:

Well… there’s the continued state of the dismantling of America. So many people I know have gone from living in uncertainty and anxiety about whether or not they will still have their jobs, to flat out losing those jobs. There’s the erasure of underrepresented people. There’s the bully tactics. There’s the folks that fundamentally don’t understand why we make art. Or how about fundamentally don’t seem to understand why the government provides services and how they support us becoming a thriving nation.

I guess in light of that, all my other March lowlights are just… the regular pebble in shoe type of irksome things. Tweens, house messes, too much laundry, feeling overwhelmed by my to do list but also fighting procrastination inertia.

March Highlights:
So the Cherry Blossoms were definitely a March highlight. Here are some more…

-Going to see a play with my oldest child.

-Seeing a friend and re-visiting the Duck Decoy Museum with her.

-Pottery painting date with my friend K.

-Lenten Women’s group. We’ve been having some really great conversations while reading Walter Brueggermann’s A Way other than our Own. The readings and meditations feel very apt for our times, with his contemplations on what it means not to let anxiety force you to live a life you do not want to lead.

-Starting back up with running after not running all winter. (Though I found it hard to find time this week with being back at work full time.)

-Started going to the exercise room at the rec center while the youngest goes swimming.

-Calling my friend who lives in Oman. It was so amazing to hear her voice and catch up.

On the work front:
-Last super title job of the season. A challenging and rewarding recital program that featured several new to me languages.

-Minor triumph at work: So when I first started at this company as the intern, I remember complaining to my boss about how the lines on the chorus log sheet were too close together and I didn’t like having to write so small.
“Make a new one, then,” she said to me.
Well, twenty years later, I finally made a new log sheet, one with more space between the lines. I don’t know why it’s taken me twenty years. Change is hard for me. But I guess being the head of the department is as good a time as any to fix this one thing that’s been irking me for twenty years.

-Seeing our chorus again for rehearsals. I adore our chorus and it makes me happy every time I get to work with them.

On the “check things off my list” front:
-Registered the 5 year old for kindergarten. My baby! She is so ready to go and I am so ready to stop paying childcare tuition.
-Finally ordered window treatments for our living room! They will be here in 4-6 weeks, depending. Interesting story – the owner of the company goes to every house call himself – his store also sells other household goods – kitchen gadgets, towels, rugs, what not. He said that they were buying up inventory now, before the tariffs really hit. Now is definitely the time to buy things, he says, before the tariff costs get passed on to the customer. (Well, given this week’s news perhaps yesterday was the time to buy…)
-Submitted our tax documents to our tax person. These should be done within the week.
-Got new glasses.

Resolutions for Rehearsal Season to Keep me feeling human and healthy:
I start rehearsals next week for a new show and I feel a little out of practice since I haven’t worked on a show since January. Some guidelines for this month:
-Plan healthy meals and snacks
-Pre-plan what I’m going to wear every day so I don’t have to think about it in the morning.
-Keep up with my life admin goals – assign myself times to do the things, make the phone calls, pay the bills.
-Read fun books.
-Do my crossword puzzle
-Hug the children.
-Go on walks. (Or runs, or if I put air in my bike tires, bike rides)
-Continue daily yoga and journaling.
-Answer phone calls and texts from family.
-Hug my family in the morning and at night.
-Be decisive.
-Be kind.

I get a lot of anxiety when I’m about to start rehearsals. It’s a combination of lack of self confidence and fear of the unknown. But once I start, the day to day becomes clearer and it all works out and I really enjoy what I do. It’s this week before rehearsal that I don’t enjoy.

Grateful For:
-Beautiful sunny, seventy degree weather.

-The spilled jar of garam masala. This is a silly one. A few weeks ago, someone knocked a whole jar of garam masala over in our pantry. And now the pantry smells all warm and spicy. Now, every time I open the pantry door, I find myself pausing to take a moment to inhale and savor the lovely smell.

-Libraries.

-That we can eat a variety of foods. One day at dinner we had salmon wrapped in nori, and it was so delicious and I just felt so grateful that we have such a wide variety of foods available in our grocery stores and a wide variety of grocery stores, and that I can cook a panoply of cuisines for dinner.

-The lady at one of my gigs who sent me a copy of my 1099 after I had misplaced the original.

-Flowers and blossoms and all the beautiful colourful signs of spring.

-Reading while the kids cleaned the kitchen. The Husband was away for two nights last week, so it was just me and the kids. On the second night, the kids cleaned the kitchen after dinner while I sat on the couch and read my book. It was wonderful. When I was a teenager, my parents would go for a walk after dinner every day, leaving my brother and I at home to clean up the kitchen. My brother and I had this division of labor where one person did the dishes and the other person did everything else. When I think back on that time, I now realize how brilliant my parents were.

Looking Forward To:
– I have to admit, April is looking like kind of a slog because of starting rehearsals for a new show. There will be a lot of evening rehearsals, and we just have one day off a week. So I’m trying to remember to look forward to the little things. Like my tea in the morning. The satisfaction of making my bed. Kissing soft sleepy cheeks at night when I come home and everyone’s asleep. My morning yoga practice. Cadbury mini eggs. (I refrained from getting the huge bag at Costco last week and I now think that was a mistake.)

Some other things on my anticipation list:

-My mother is coming to visit for the kids’ Spring Break. (Although this means I’ll have to clean out the toy/guest room which is currently a mess)

-Starting rehearsals. Or more specifically starting rehearsals with a conductor. This show I’m working on is a contemporary opera and the music is probably one of the hardest scores I’ve had to follow. It is very repetitive and the time signatures change constantly so I have to count like crazy. I was listening to a recording to mark the timings in my score and I kept having to go back to the beginning and start again because I would just get lost. I am very much hoping the music will be easier to follow when there is a conductor to watch so I know where the downbeats are.

-Just started this audiobook, a death doula’s memoir:

What We Ate:
Monday: Vegetable Tortilla Soup from New York Times Cooking. I made this because I had sweet potato to use up. This was more like chili than soup. Definitely better the next day. Vegan.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday! Carnitas made in the InstantPot.

Wednesday: Roasted Salmon in Miso Rice from New York Times Cooking. I brought out the nori and we ate this as handrolls.

Thursday: Easy coq au vin in the InstantPot. At the 8 year old’s request.

Friday: pizza and … I’m not sure what they watched. I think maybe basketball. I worked this evening.

Saturday: Spicy Korean Bowl – the family went out to eat and brought this home for me.

Sunday: Joy’s Creamy Green Pasta from Meera Sodha. A repeat of a meal we had two weeks ago because this sauce is just SO delicious and I had a bag of spinach to use up and I had to work in the afternoon and this meal comes together in less than 30 minutes. Vegan.

I’m posting this later than usual, so I hope you have a lovely weekend!
What are you most looking forward to in April, big or small? Have you ever changed something after living with it for way too long?

Kuala Lumpur, Winter Break 2024 – Day #1-3

I know it’s spring, but all the spring break travel recaps I’m seeing has inspired me to write recaps of our winter break trip. I keep meaning to these recaps, but I kept getting a bit of writer’s block regarding the Taiwan portion because truth to tell, I didn’t plan that part, so I didn’t quite know how to write about it. Since I’m a little stuck on the Taiwan portion, I thought I’d just start with the Kuala Lumpur recap, even though it was the last part of our trip.

People looked a little surprised when I told them we were going to Kuala Lumpur. I guess it’s not a place on everyone’s radar. It wasn’t on mine either when were were looking for a trip to add to our Taiwan trip. The Husband and I both came to the table with three suggestions for places to visit, and Singapore was on both our lists – it’s easy to navigate, close to Taiwan, and has lots to see and do. Singapore, however, is actually quite expensive. My brother-in-law had once mentioned that Malaysia was one of his favorite countries, so when I read that Kuala Lumpur was a lot like Singapore, but more affordable, I started looking at that. If we had more days to spend in Malaysia, I probably would have also tried to go to one of the beach towns, but since we only had five days, we decided to stick to one location and travel at a slower pace – lots of time to relax, swim in the pool, and wander around.

I will say – of those three things, “wandering around” might not be the best thing to do in Kuala Lumpur. While there are lots of parks and outdoor spaces, the roads are very difficult to cross and there is a lot of traffic. Despite there being a public transportation system, and even though I believe that using public transportation is one of the most enlightening parts of travel, we didn’t end up doing that. For most of our trip we took Grab (their version of Uber) almost everywhere. It was very convenient. And cheap. I think for 5 days in Kuala Lumpur we spent something like $50 on Grabs. The tour guide on our food tour told us that Grab is so cheap and convenient because the government subsidizes the cost of gas.

But we certainly did eat a lot of food. Warning – there will be lots of food pictures in this recap.

We went to Kuala Lumpur (or KL) for five days, four nights. This post will be the first three days.

Day One – Leaving Taiwan and arrival in Kuala Lumpur (KL)
We left our hotel in Taiwan the morning on December 29th. The flight to KL was about five hours long and we arrived at 4pm. The line through customs was very long and a little confusing. The Husband was able to go through the automated kiosk, but since I had the kids, I had to stand in line. After about thirty minutes in line, someone pointed me towards the Family line where there was no wait at all. After we cleared customs, we picked up our luggage and took a taxi to our AirBnB.

We had a slight snafu with booking our accommodations. We had originally booked in a hotel, but the week before, we couldn’t find the reservation and our credit card hadn’t been charged. We ended up finding an AirBnB that was close to where we wanted to stay. It was pretty much an extended stay apartment kind of situation, which was a little disappointing because it didn’t have the housekeeping or breakfast that are convenient when we stay in a hotel. But the place was clean and spacious, with a kitchen, and there were enough beds for everyone and there was a pool, so it was a fine place for us to stay. And, there was a view of the iconic Perdana Towers out our window.

The iconic Perdana Towers seen through our curtain.

By the time we got to our Air BnB, it was maybe 7pm. I will say, we are not good “arrivers” when we travel. The day we arrive in a new country, we are always discombobulated and cranky and incapable of making decisions. This almost always manifests in us being hungry and at the same time unable to find anything to eat. So this first night, we couldn’t pin down a place for dinner, and decided to go for a walk to explore our neighborhood. We ended up at My Family, which is a 7-11 type convenience store, where we got wraps and sandwiches and instant noodles to take back to the apartment. Not the fanciest first meal, but it got us fed and we could all go to sleep.

Day Two – Exploring KL on foot, and Food Tour
To start out our second day, we decided to explore on foot. Here’s the thing we quickly realized – even though things look close on the map, they are actually quite difficult to get to. The roads aren’t always straight, and many of the roads are four lanes of traffic and crosswalks/ traffic lights are spaced out rather far apart, so it is a little difficult to get from point A to point B. But it being our first full day in KL, we thought it was an okay first way to explore. One of the good things about walking though, is we passed a street vendor selling the Malaysian National Dish – nasi lemak (steamed coconut rice with cucumber, peanuts, spicy sauce, and in our case quail.) This vendor also sold tasty sweet fritters and other street foods. We ended up buying something from this stall every day we were in Kuala Lumpur. We found out later on that the regulations on street vendors have been loosened since 2020 because people were hard hit by COVID so the government wanted there to be fewer barriers for people to make money.

We walked to Bukit Bintang, which is known as the central hub of Kuala Lumpur, known for high end shopping and ample street foot. We ended up at the very pink Opera Cafe for lunch, an adorable restaurant that felt very fancy.

The 5 year old with her Turkish Delight hot chocolate

After lunch, we browsed the bookstore at the mall then wandered around the area some more. KL is very busy city and it was almost overwhelming, all the hustle and bustle and foreign languages being spoken. We stopped for some yogurt cubes – an interesting frozen treat.

We bought tickets for the hop on hop off bus tour that we would take the next day, and also made a stop for some fresh fruit juices. We tried all three flavors: watermelon, lemon/lychee and mango. The lemon had salted plum in it, one of my favorite drink add ons. All the juices came with handy little carrying handles, which I thought was so smart!

It was mid afternoon by this point, so we took a Grab back to the AirBnB to rest. The kid wanted to check out the roof top pool, so we went up for a few minutes:

The big event of the day was the Sambal Nights Food Tour. A food tour is one of our family’s favorite things to do when we travel. I try to book one for our first day in a place – I find it is a good way to orient ourselves in a city, gives us some of the history of the place, and the food keeps the kids engaged. We took a Grab to the meeting place and met our tour guide Cash. He was such a knowledgeable tour guide and willing to answer all our questions about life in KL. There was SO MUCH food involved, and all of it delicious. One of the most interesting things about Malaysia is that it is the intersection of Malay, Chinese, and Indian people and cultures, and the food very much reflects that.

(Side note: On that international note, Cash told us that when kids are in elementary school, they are given the option to learn another language, either English, Mandarin, or Tamal. I thought it was so interesting that Cash said the idea is that kids are given the chance to learn the language of their parents. It’s such a different mindset then I encounter in the U.S. where people are alarmed if kids don’t learn English and choosing a foreign language is about learning something different rather than connecting with one’s roots. Little insights like that are what make traveling to foreign countries so fascinating to me.)

The first stop was a walk through the local market where we saw stalls for fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, spices….

After the walk through the market, the food tour took us for our first stop where we had noodles and roti. While waiting for our food, Cash brought out all the fruit that he bought at the market and we tried them all. I love fruit, so this was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole tour.

Mangosteen – my favorite
Rambutan – the kids’ favorite
snake fruit

Pictured above was only a sampling of the fruit we had – Mangosteen, which is banned on public transportation because the skin makes a deep purple stain. This was very sweet, juicy and chewy. Rambutan – kind of like a lychee on the inside. The kids really liked this one, with the fuzzy pink exterior. Snake fruit – I had never had this before, and I really liked it -you peel aways the scaly exterior (hence the name) and the inside is light and crunchy. Not pictured, but we also had durian, which to my palette was not as stinky as people like to say.

After the fruit, we each got a chance to try our hand at making roti. The man who instructed us in roti making makes 400 roti a day. 400!!! Watching him make roti is like watching a magical dough ballet. My roti flips were no where near as elegant.

Friends, there was SO MUCH food on this tour. I can’t even document it all. There were steaming bowls of noodles. Fried street food. Mango smoothies.

roti and daal. The kids had roti and condensed milk
mango smoothie
nasi lemak
grilled fish
cendol – a sweet soup
noodles

And this isn’t even all the food that we had. The food tour lasted four hours and by the end, our stomachs were stuffed and we had learned so much about Kuala Lumpur. The food tour ended at the base of the Perdana towers at around 10pm, and from there we took a grab home and collapsed into bed.

Day Three – Hop on Hop Off Bus and New Years Eve
I had a read that a Hop on Hop off Bus was a good way to see a lot of the city – the KL Hop On HOP Off Bus had over twenty stops. You could just ride the bus to all the stops, or your could get off, do some exploring and catch the next bus to continue on the bus route.

The first stop we got off at was Central Market, a building that was built in 1888 as a wet market and today is a arts and crafts market. A friend of mine had recommended it to me as a nice place to find souvenirs. We stopped at a batik stall and looked at all the beautifully skilled batik pieces. Here the kids each picked a prepped screen and tried their hand at batik painting. These paintings are one of our favorite souvenirs that we brought home and now sit in our sun room.

Next stop on the Hop on Hop off Bus tour was Little India. The family loves Indian food so we thought this would be a good place for lunch. The moment we got off the bus, I was wrapped with the sights and sounds and smells of India. Well, I’ve never been to India, so I can’t say for sure, but the architecture, the Indian music, the smell of spices and food – it was all such a different world.

We had lunch at a place called MRT1924, a vegetarian restaurant the served South Indian Food. Very tasty:

Then back on the Hop on Hop off Bus. Our next stop was the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia.

The Islamic Arts Museum of Malaysia was on a lot of lists of “must see” museums in Kuala Lumpur, and I agree. Coming to Malaysia, I hadn’t really thought about how Malaysia is a Muslim country – I had never visited a Muslim country before, and I didn’t know what to expect. The wonderful thing about this Museum is that they really highlight the intersection of the Islamic and Asian. There were quite a few exhibits on the history of migration to the area, which I found fascinating. And then there were lots of displays that highlighted how the Muslims who came to the Malay peninsula influenced the culture. For example, batik fabrics that feature Islamic designs and writing – I was in awe of how skilled the batik was:

Chinese Islamic calligraphy:

There was also a huge display of models of mosques thoughout the world. I found this part facinating – how there are basic elements that all mosques have, but each country/culture puts their own spin on things:

Chinese Mosque
One of the most famous – The Taj Mahal

We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon at the Museum and then took a Grab back to our apartment. As always, the kids wanted to go to the pool, so we had some more pool time before going to dinner. I have to admit that I was a little leery of the rooftop pool since I don’t like heights. I stayed away from the outside edge of the pool and kept to the shallow end. Even still, there is something really cool about being in a pool so high up, that it gives the illusion of extending into the horizon.

After pool time, we grabbed dinner at a restaurant that was just next to our apartments. We had burgers and fruit juices and the Husband ordered a super spicy yet delicious goat curry.

Afterwards, what with it being New Years Eve and all, we decided to stay home since everyone said that it would be a madhouse in the City. Fortunately, our apartment had a great view of the firework display at the Petronas Towers, so we got to watch those. We don’t usually watch fireworks – they are often too late and too loud – so this was a special treat for the kids to be able to stay up and watch them from the comfort of the apartment.

After the fireworks, we went to bed, but there continued to be smaller firework displays throughout the city that I could see. I marveled at how back home fireworks were very regulated, so aside from sparklers, the only fireworks one could see were the displays put on my the city or county.

And that was our first three days in Kuala Lumpur. Lots of food, and sensory overload as we took in such a multicultural teeming city. We had two more days in the city and more adventures to come!

Have you ever been to Malaysia? What are your “must dos” when you travel? Do you like to watch fireworks?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Play going

Another pretty life as usual week – people went to work, kids went to school, teeth were lost (!), we went to parks, shot hoops, ran errands, had tv time and movie nights. Last week was my last week without having to work evenings until mid May. This week I start having to cover evening and weekend rehearsals at work and there will probably be a rough patch of re-adjustment of all of our schedules and rhythms. I’ve had my evenings and weekends work-free for the past six weeks and I’ve enjoyed that time. Oh well, I’ll have lots of time off this summer.

Some things this week:
-It’s been a rough week on the “WTF is going on in the White House” front. I mean it’s been a rough two months, let’s be honest, but this week there were actions, words, declarations that were particularly hard for some friends and industries I am close to.

-On the good news side- My new glasses came in. Life looks much more shiny and clear now.

Also – they came in this super cute case:

-The 8 year old’s French concert. Every other year, all the French Immersion classes put on a concert. Every immersion class gets to present one song, even the kindergarteners. This year the concert was held at a high school auditorium. it was kind of a madhouse when we first arrived because it was raining, so everyone squished into the lobby and all the kids were running around wild and excited to see each other. Seating started 15 minutes late and there was for sure at least one kid crying because they couldn’t find their class. When it came time for the 8 year old’s class to sing, there was confusion with the sound operator and the 8 year old’s class just stood onstage while they got it sorted. Predictably the class got restless just standing there, but not our 8 year old. He just stood there quietly without fidgeting, almost as if he were a statue. It was kind of hilarious. Anyhow, in the end they figured things out and the concert was a lot of fun and there was a great sense of community. I know the point of an immersion program is for the kids to speak French, and I’m always so surprised at how clear all their accents are.

– I finally registered the 5 year old for kindergarten. Yay! Checked that off the list. I still have to put her in the language immersion lottery, but at least I’m one step closer to having the full Kindergarten registration check off my list.

The highlight of last week was taking a trip to the theatre with the 13 year old. It was kind of an impulsive decision. I had noticed that the Shakespeare Theatre Center was doing a play called Kunene and the King which was written by a South African actor/playwright and it was set in South Africa. Since the 13 year old and I are going to South Africa later this year, I thought it might be a good play to go see.

I had decided that one of my goals for this year was to go see a play. Like with talking and no singing. I texted a friend who sees a lot of plays about this goal of mine and she said, “Yes! See a talkie!” I think my instinct is always to go see a musical or opera because it’s the world I work in. I haven’t seen a play in yeeears. (not counting the 13 year old’s middle school play, staged last year in the school cafeteria.) Maybe I saw a Shakespeare something pre-pandemic? I can’t remember. But it’s such a different, more intimate medium. And I feel like it is a medium that demands a different kind of attention and would be a bit of a challenge for me because the drama isn’t flashy and singing and always demanding attention.

Anyhow, when I saw this play set in South Africa was being performed and that this was the last weekend, I decided to take the 13 year old. The cool thing is that people under 35 can get a ticket for $35 so her ticket was pretty affordable, a downright steal. We decided to make an evening of it. We took the metro downtown and had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Chinatown, Chinatown Express. They have very delicious hand pulled noodles. We ordered dumpling, soup dumpling and roast duck noodle soup. Truthfully, the soup dumplings weren’t at all soupy, so that was disappointing, but everything else was really tasty.

Afterwards, we had about an hour before our show, so we got some boba tea – oolong sweetened with honey with lychee jelly and boba for me, regular boba milk tea for the 13 year old. No mommy-daughter date is complete without boba. We got our teas and walked around the area. We found a square with tables and swings and a magnolia tree in full bloom, so we sat there for a fifteen minutes and swung and finished our boba before heading to the theatre.

I really enjoyed Kunene and the King. The play tells the story of a white actor who is preparing the role of King Lear in the wake of finding out that he has cancer, and Lunga Kunene, the Black nurse who is sent to look after him. The two men slowly form a friendship despite being on opposite sides of Apartheid. Funny and touching and surprising, and with Shakespeare woven throughout. The Shakespeare was especially lovely since I had just finished Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea’s book about Shakespeare. And at the end… well.

There is something very humbling about watching a play, and thinking about how great the performances are, and being taken by the craft of the play, the scene shifts, and the costume changes, and the music and all that and then realizing that your 13 year old, sitting next to you, has her head on your shoulder and is starting to sobs because she has been so absorbed in the humanity and story unfolding onstage. Oh, it was such a good reminder to watch plays with open hearts and let ourselves be touched by the stories that people tell, onstage and otherwise, to recognize that even though the people onstage don’t look like us, don’t live where we live, don’t have the same history as us – that they still feel the same emotions as us, still have struggles like we do, are still humans like us. I think when art is criticized for being “woke” or for pushing ideologies… well, it kind of misses the point. We create to connect, not to divide. I am so frustrated that certain people in the administration don’t understand that fundamental aspect of what artists do.

Afterwards we hung out in the lobby (where I ran into a singer friend – how fun it is to serendipitously run into people you know at the theatre!), and the 13 year old got her program signed by the cast. I was in awe of John Kani, the man who wrote and starred in the play. He was such a trailblazer for theatre in South Africa – he collaborated with White playwright Athol Fugard (who just passed away) at a time when that kind of collaboration was something you could get arrested for doing. He created anti-Apartheid theatre works and was beaten and arrested for doing so. He was the first Black man to play Othello in South Africa, which was considered quite controversial since he had to play opposite a white woman. And despite all that, what the 13 year old was most excited about was that Kani played the King in the Black Panther movies. I mean admittedly that’s pretty cool too. He was very nice and signed the 13 year old’s program and when I told him we were going to South Africa this summer, he said that it’s a beautiful country now, even though it hadn’t been for many many years.

Grateful For:
-Finding the Eagle Shirt. The 8 year old has a favorite shirt – he calls it his Robot Eagle shirt. He would wear this shirt every day if he could. I found the shirt at a consignment sale when he was four and then I bought a bigger size off Poshmark for him when he outgrew the first one. Well, the shirt had gone missing for a couple of months now. But last week, I was going through some bags in the sunroom and I found his Robot Eagle shirt in a tote bag. Yay! He was so happy to be reunited with it.

-Our mechanic for getting our car back to us so quickly.

-The lawyers who are persisting. I have a good friend who works for U.S. Institute of Peace and from reading the papers, it’s take over by DOGE was a wild ride. I’m thankful there are lawyers trying to change/slow the churning machinery. I’m not hopeful that it will do anything, quickly, but in these times many are certainly carrying on with courage.

-Dishwasher. Washing up after dinner always seems so tedious. But then I remind myself I just have to load the dishwasher and wash the pots and pans and it all of a sudden seems more manageable. When I was growing up, we never used the dishwasher. We didn’t have one until we moved to California in 1992 when I was 13. And when we moved into a house with a dishwasher, my parents used it to store extra dishes, not to wash them. All to say, I did not understand the use of dishwashers until many years later when I had a kid. They are amazing! I was thinking of how lovely it is to have a dishwasher this week when I looked at the pile of dishes after dinner. I set a timer for 15 minutes and when it went off, that pile of dishes was in the dishwasher and I had washed the pots and pans.

-Bookstores. There is a new independent bookstore next the the 8 year old’s sewing class. I’m not a huge book buyer – I prefer to borrow from the library so that I can then return books to the library and not have them in my house forever. Having said that, I think I might buy a book occasionally from this bookstore because I do feel like bookstores can be such a wonderful part of our landscape.

-My friend who walked into my office with a bag of dill pickle chips, saying “I have a problem. I can’t walk by a bag of dill pickle chips without buying them for you.”

-NCAA Basketball brackets. It is indeed the madness of March in our household. The Husband declared that we are not allowed to watch scripted television until the end of college basketball season. (Exceptions given for Brooklyn 99.) The 13 year old has a bracket as part of an extra credit gym assignment. She and the Husband spent an evening poring over the choices and creating her bracket. In the midst of so much teen angst, it was so wonderful to see them bonding over something. (Oh my goodness, the Maryland Colorado State game – triumph and heartbreak back and forth for the last 30 seconds. I’m so conflicted because of course everyone here was so excited that Maryland won, but Colorado State really showed up too. I hate it when teams lose and everyone’s sad. Wait, I guess that’s almost every game. Two sides to every coin and all th.)

-Rec center fitness rooms. My tax dollars are work in such a great way. I finally made it the fitness rooms at our rec center. Rec Center Fitness passes have been free to county residents for the past two years, but I’ve always been too intimidated to go because I’m not a gym person. But there is a fitness room in the rec center where the 5 year old is taking swim lessons, so I’ve been popping up to do 15 minutes of strength training while she is swimming. So grateful to have this available.

-A cold fizzy Coke and a slice of cheese pizza. Sometimes it’s the perfect combination.

-That people still make plays. Even when they are 81 years old and have been beaten just for being Black, and have been in Marvel movies, they still believe in the medium of theatre.

Looking Forward To:
-Peak bloom! Peak Bloom! I know I said this last week, but it’s sooooo close! We’re in stage 5 of 6 right now. The Magnolias are blooming already, and there are some pear and apple blossoms to be seen. I hope peak bloom is this coming week because I have the flexibility to go down on a weekday for a bloomy wander.

-Having the summer figured out. This isn’t a “yay, fun!” looking forward to kind of thing, but rather a “Oh thank goodness we’re done!” kind of looking forward to thing. We’re so close to having summer plotted out. The 13 year old is signed up for all her camps and activities. I need to register the 8 year old for his camps. The 5 year old will continue at her pre-school until mid-July, I think. We have tentative dates for when we will take trips too, though nothing is quite set.

-Being one step closer to window treatments in the living room. You may or may not recall that we’ve been living without proper window treatments in the living room for two years, and it’s a perpetual To Do item on my list. Right now we have a combination of mismatched sheers and too short black curtain panels that I just happened to have lying around, but which don’t go all the way across the windows. Well, we’ve finally booked an appointment for the window treatment guy to come to our house. What I know that I want: Top down/bottom up . Cordless. Light filtering. What I might want: bamboo shades. But this might be tricky because our foyer, which leads into the living room has wood paneling and I worry about the shades clashing with the foyer. Oh well, this window treatment guy is highly recommended, so hopefully he can help steer us in the right direction.

-Started watching this show with the 13 year old and looking forward to watching more. I’m late to the game, I know:

-Listening to this book:

I’m not a big horror fan – I don’t like being tense all the time – but Bahni Turpin is one of my favorite audiobook narrators and for some reason I’m finding horror more entertaining than grisly in the audiobook format. This book has even made me laugh out loud a few times.

What We Ate:
Monday – Lamb Stew and Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick’s Day. Other than making sure the kids are wearing green, we don’t do much for St. Patrick’s Day, but I do try to make an appropriate meal. This was all really tasty. The Irish Soda Bread is from our cookbook “The Irish Pantry” it’s a little more dense and not sweet like what often passes for Irish soda bread, and it’s made in a cast iron skillet, so it’s very simple to throw together. The effort to taste ration is very high.

Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos. This meal took less than twenty minutes to get on the table. Tacos may seem like a lot of work, but this is actually one of the fastest meals I make. The first fifteen minutes are: season the shrimp, put taco shells in oven, make pico, chop cabbage and squeeze lime over it, heat black beans (first toast cumin, oregano, and smoked paprika in a pot then add two cans of black beans. Heat through then mash with a potato masher.). Last five minutes – cook shrimp, and while shrimp cooks, slice an avocado, open the sour cream, and put everything on table.

Wednesday: Joy’s Creamy Green Pasta – a recipe from Meera Sodha’s vegan column in the Guardian. This was really good – everyone ate it- kind of like pesto, but creamy and more filling. The sauce is made of blanched spinach, silken tofu, nutritional yeast, miso, basil, parsley, lemon, olive oil. Served on rigatoni, which is a pasta new to me. I really loved how the sauce got into the rigatoni tubes. It was topped with an lemon olive mixture that made the whole things just taste so sunny. Vegan.

Thursday: Mac and cheese (from the blue box) and green beans. Quick dinner before the 8 year old’s concert.

Friday: Pizza and the Secret Lives of Pets. We’ve seen Secret Lives of Pets before and it is a much smarter movie than it sounds.

Saturday: Chinatown Express (for me and the 13 year old before going to the theatre) / Dumplings and green beans (at home for the Husband and the two younger kids.)

Sunday: Leftovers and snack dinner for simple Sunday dinner. I made the two little kids plates of cheese, crackers, pepperoni, cucumbers and apple slices. One of them said, “It’s like we’re having lunch for dinner!” I made myself flautas from the leftover beans from Taco Tuesday.

Hope this week features some sunshine for you!

Have you ever seen a “talkie” play? Any signs of Spring where you are? Did you make a March Madness bracket?

Weekly Recap + what we ate: When things go awry

The Daylights Savings Time change has kicked my butt this year. I’ve been going to bed too late, getting up too late. Luckily the kids were all early risers to start, so even though they’re getting up later than usual, they still have plenty of time to get ready in the morning. I think we are almost back on track now, though that 7:15am piano lesson on Wednesday of last week was brutal. This week I’m having the kids sleep in their “tomorrow” clothes on Tuesday night so it’s one less step in the morning before piano lessons.

Last week was my last week off contract before I start prepping the stage management department for another show. It ended up being very full. Monday I met up with a friend at the Duck Decoy Museum. It was kind of fun to revisit this museum, which we chose because it was roughly half way between my friend and me. It was nice to catch up, go for a stroll along the Chesapeake Bay and grab a bite to eat. My friend used to work in opera too; we started out in the business together – me as an intern and her as an Assistant Stage Manager. I’ve known her for over twenty years. We talked a lot about opera stuff and life stuff. It’s funny to see how some of the people we worked with when we were both just starting out are now pretty important in the opera world, some even running opera companies. My friend was a pretty big deal too, but is taking a step back to re-evaluate things. Sometimes I think back and feel so lucky that the colleagues I worked with twenty years ago are, twenty years later, still good friends.

That was the big adventure for the week. I spent most of the week going to appointments and prepping supertitles for a voice recital. I can be pretty efficient about prepping titles because it is a lot of steps and I like to have them done well in advance of the recital, but for some reason this time I just couldn’t focus and ended up doing it pretty last minute, which I don’t like. The was such an interesting recital program. There were songs in English, German, French, Chinese, Uhygur, Farsi, and Quechua (an indigenous language of Peru). Making those titles were certainly challenging. Even though the singer gives me the translations, I still have to match the translations to the music/text, which is hard to do without having even a basic understanding of the language. google Translate can help some, though the Quechua song was definitely tough. On a whole, though, the titles for this recital was a really fun challenge. This is the super nerdy part of doing supertitles that I like.

Funny story – twenty minutes before the recital, the pianist’s iPad wouldn’t turn on. All his music was on that iPad. I gather there was a lot of panic backstage and mad photo copying of music. You wouldn’t have guessed anything was off during the recital. Until we came to the last piece in the first half. They singer and pianist started the song. They got about half a page in, and then stopped. And the pianist looked at the audience and started speaking. He explained about the iPad not turning on and all the help they got to get a hold of the music for the program. But then, they didn’t realize until just this moment that the music he had been given for this last piece was in a different key than what they had rehearsed.

“If it was just a half step, or a whole step or even a third different, I would have just transposed it as we went,” he said, which made my head explode just a little bit. But I guess that’s why he’s a professional pianist. “But,” he went on, “the music is a a whole fourth higher and that’s beyond me. So I don’t know what to do.”

And the singer said, “Let’s just try it a fourth higher. I’ll sing it a fourth higher. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll come back with a different solution after intermission.”

For folks who aren’t musicians – a fourth higher is a HUGE difference. Vocally it just sits in a completely different place in the voice. It’s like the difference between Elphaba and Glinda. Or, I don’t know between a turkey and a hummingbird.

But they did it. The song still sounded great, just a different feel than if she had sung it in the lower key. At intermission, the pianist’s iPad started working again, so the second half proceeded without incident, but what a memorable recital it was. This was my last recital with this group for the season, and I’m a little sad that I won’t get to work on another recital until the fall.

Weekend – We are in a little lull with kids activities now that the 13 year old is done with basketball season and the 8 year old finished his goalkeeping clinic. There are still plenty of other activities but for the first time in ages, our afternoons were pretty open. I did things like fold laundry. We played board games on Saturday night – Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza while the Husband made dinner, and after dinner, we opened a game that Santa brought for Christmas. It’s called Flamecraft and the jury’s still out on this game. It has a billion pieces and takes a while to set up and each turn is a million steps. I kept pointedly asking the Husband, “Why did Santa think this game was a good idea?” Despite my grumbling, the family took to it. The premise is easy enough that the 8 and 5 year old could play, as long as we weren’t keeping score or trying to be strategic or anything. And the game is beautifully illustrated. The kids seemed to like it, so maybe it will stay in our rotation.

Sunday was more exciting than I wanted. After the 5 year old’s agility class, we went to a bakery to pick up some treats and then to the grocery store. As I was pulling into the Giant parking lot, I started to smell something funny and I thought maybe it was just that corner of the parking lot, but then I noticed all this smoke. I thought it was coming from my exhaust, but an elderly gentleman in the parking lot waved at me and yelled, “YOUR CAR IS OVER-HEATING!”

I pulled into a spot and called the Husband because I figured he would know what to do. But then the nice elderly gentleman knocked on my window and said, “Do you want me to take a look?” Now I very much believe in the grace of good Samaratian and said, “yes please!”

So we popped the hood of the car and there was all this smoke and water, which I guess means it really was steam that was coming out of my car. The elderly gentleman (who had the name Phil embroidered on his shirt – he was clearly coming from work) starts looking around. Then he makes a comment about what a cute little kid I have in my car. And I agree that she’s very cute and ask him if he has kids.

“Well,” he says to me, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve lived with four women in my life and I have grand kids ranging in age from 18 to 24. But I love kids.”

Then he noticed that the radiator hose had become disconnected. He asked me a bunch of questions and said, “You should get that check out. Did you call your husband?”

Now modern woman that I am, I had a moment of pause when he asked that. But then, I realized, Phil wasn’t wrong – the first call I made was to the Husband. Is it sexist if it’s true?

Phil went back to his car to get a pair of pliers so he could re-check the hose, but first he asked, “Can I give your daughter a toy?” I said yes, because I figured why not, and he comes back with a park of piers and a stuffed animal -a cat that squeaked when you squeezed it. Of course the 5 year old was delighted. (Side note- when the 13 year old found out that a random stranger had given the 5 year old a stuffed animal, she asked, “Is he trying to use her as a drug mule?” That made me laugh so hard.) Phil reattached the hose and told me to fill the coolant and take it to my mechanic immediately. And then my guardian angel was on his way.

Sunday afternoon, I had two friends over for lunch. These were the friends whom I went pottery painting with two weeks ago. Our pottery pieces were done, so one friend picked them up and they came over for lunch and pottery hand off. I thought my flower pot turned out very cute:

Before
After!

For lunch, I made a batch of the blogger favorite curry chick pea salad, which we ate with olive bread and cucumbers. One of my friends brought some pastries from a new Asian American bakery, Rose Ave., and the pastries were divine. My favorite was the Ube cream Queen Aman. Queen Aman is one of my favorite pastries, and to add ube cream… so delicious.

After the friends left, the Husband and I tried to go out to look at blinds and mattresses, two things we are in dire need of. But the blind place closed early on Sundays and the Macy’s near us didn’t have mattresses. Bummer. Feeling a little defeated, we didn’t know what to do and were going to head straight home. But then we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens instead. So we had a nice walk through the park to the gardens and back. The gardens are still very brown and grey, but there are bits of colour starting to pop up and it made for a nice pick me up. Also, exciting was that we left the kids at home to do this. Now that the oldest is legally old enough to stay home with the two little kids, the Husband and I have on occasion gone out to run errands or what not, just the two of us. It’s been so amazing to be able to walk out the door without a kid in tow. Milestones!

Speaking of things gone awry (because things always happen in 3) – After my fall while running last week, I noticed something interesting. I didn’t cut my chin, but it did start to scab over. I’m not sure what is up with that? Also after a couple days, my chin started to bruise really really badly. Like it looked like I rubbed my chin in graphite in an ill attempt to draw a goatee on myself. It was pretty distinct. I was a little self conscious about it and thought, maybe I should cover it up with make-up. But that would require buying make-up and figuring out how to use it. I had no interest in any of that. So I just let the chin get blacker and bluer and went on with life. I did have a thought that I should just head people off at the pass and reference it first – “How are you doing?” “Oh, you know – ” vague hand wave ” – just a little accident. Ugh. How are you?” But I just let it be.

What fascinated me was there were people who would ask my about my black and blue chin and the people who didn’t say anything. And I’m not talking about strangers in the street. These were people who I see every day and are friendly with. I’m sure there’s no correlation here for those who asked “WHAT HAPPENED???” and those who didn’t say anything. But it did get me thinking about whether or not I would say something if I saw someone with a huge wound? I mean when I see a friend or colleague come in with a boot or crutches, I usually will ask what happened. But would it make a difference it’s on the face? Do people have the same internal monologue as I do? “Ooh that looks bad. i hope they’re okay. Will I make them self-conscious if I say something? Should I let them reference it first? I don’t want to pretend nothing is going on – I might seem unobservant or uncaring…” Or maybe it’s just me and most people if they don’t say anything just didn’t notice? There’s no right or wrong answer here, of course; just something that was rattling around in my brain this week.

Grateful For:

-Seeing the first spring flowers coming up. Hyacinths along our front walk.

-Basketball courts at the park and a body that still can shoot a basket. A couple days last week, I met the 13 year old at the basketball courts after school and we shot baskets for 30-45 minutes. Is there anything as satisfying as making a basket? I’m bad enough at basketball that it still gives me a little rush every time the ball sails though the hoop.

-Clean sheets on my bed.

-My father’s help with the Chinese songs in the recital program that I worked on. There was one song in Chinese and the English text I got was matched to Chinese characters, but the music had pin yin (the romanization of the characters), so I couldn’t match the English to the music. I sent the Mandarin text to my dad, and he talked me through the characters so that I could match the English translation to the pin yin in the score. I’m so glad I had him for help.

-For that matter – I’m really grateful that my parents spoke Mandarin to me when I was a a child. My Mandarin isn’t great, but I can get by, and I did notice when we were in Taiwan it got easier with each day. When I was prepping for the recital last week, once I heard the Chinese songs being sung, I understood enough of the words that I knew I was on the right track. I can only read a handful of characters and would loved to read/write more, but it’s a really hard language to learn. But I’m really grateful that I have a little bit of the language in me. Also grateful for the little French that I have. It’s enough that I can help the 8 year old with his homework. Every time I heard people speaking Mandarin or French out and about and maybe understand some of it, I think about how cool languages are and how neat it is that people communicate. Also I found this super interesting about what animals sound like in different languages.

-Friends that invite the 13 year old out to shows and to shoot hoops. I know it’s hard for her to always be tied to activities that her younger siblings can take part in, so I’m grateful when she has friends (and their parents) that invite her out and come pick her up and bring her home. This week, she had invites to go play basketball t the Rec Center and to see a concert at a local high school. These things would have been hard for us to take the little kids to so I’m grateful that she has friends that include her in plans. Also I think it’s nice to switch up the dynamic between the kids once in a while by having it be just one or two kids at home.

-This green messenger bag:

We bought this bag 13 years ago to use as a diaper bag when the oldest child was born. At the time the options for diaper bags were kind of frilly and pretty and the Husband wanted something gender neutral and utilitarian. So we went to REI and this bag had all the features we wanted. This bag has gone on so many trips with us, on flights, over oceans. And it’s still in great shape. Anyhow, ironically, I had been using an old diaper bag to carry my laptop around. The diaper bag had been an impulse purchase – it had been on super sale and looked really cute, but when it arrived it wasn’t super functional as a diaper bag so I put it in a closet for years until I realized that it actually fit my laptop perfectly. So I’ve been using that yellow diaper bag for my laptop. Anyhow after many years, the faux leather on the yellow diaper bag is starting to flake so I decided it was time to retire it, and I just started carrying my laptop around in a tote bag, which isn’t great. Then last week, I was cleaning out a closet and I unearthed the green messenger bag that had been living in the closet for a couple year what with COVID and the kids being out of diapers and all that. Well the green messenger/former diaper bag was perfect for fitting my lap top and it has now been put back into service. I’m just a little tickled that for years I used a diaper bag for my laptop and a messenger bag for a diaper bag. And now it feels like life has come full circle. (Also – I do NOT miss the days when leaving the house required packing as if for an Arctic expedition – food, toys, diapers, wipes, change of clothes…. So much simpler to leave the house now, though the Husband will say that I still pack too much to leave the house. But he’s a guy and perhaps doesn’t believe in having emergencies outside the house.)

-Phil who helped me with my car in the Giant parking lot and gave the 5 year old a stuffed animal.

Looking Forward To:

-The 8 year old’s French concert this week. Every year, all the French Immersion classes at his school put on a concert where each class sings a song. It’s pretty cute. I do have to find the kid a pair of black pants. But he has first communion later this year and I’m told he needs black pants for that too, so hoepfully I can find somethign he can wear more than once.

-Peak Bloom! There is an updated prediction for peak bloom – it is now predicted for March 28th – 31st. I’m not yet in rehearsal, so I think I should be able to go see the cherry blossoms at some point.

-New glasses! I finally made an appointment with the eye doctor, updated my prescription. I am VERY near sighted, the optometrist said. I knew that, but I think I’ve gotten even worse since my last appointment…. three years ago. Luckily my far sightedness has remained about the same, so I didn’t bother to get new sunglasses since I use those just for driving. I chose new every day glasses, that I’m kind of excited about – they have red rims. They aren’t as bold as I wanted, but I need nose pads on my glasses, and that limits the options. At any rate, the new glasses will arrive in two weeks and I’m really excited because I currently can’t distinguish betwen 6 and 8 on my crossword puzzle squares and THIS IS IMPORTANT.

-Listening to this audiobook:

Hearing Dame Judi Dench’s words (she doesn’t actually read her own part, Barbara Flynn does, doing a remarkable job), as she talks about the plays of Shakespeare is both hilarious and revelatory. Highly recommend for any Shakespeare or theatre enthusiasts.

What We Ate:
Monday: Mac and Cheese and hot dogs.

Tuesday: Chicken mole tacos. I made this mole sauce from Rick Bayless. It made so much mole sauce, that I froze three jars and I can’t wait to eat more. It makes for a super easy meal – poach chicken thighs for 15 minutes, shredded and tossed it with the mole sauce. Tortillas, home made pico de gallo, sour cream, and avocado.

Wednesday: Fried catfish sandwiches. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Pork and eggplant stir fry with noodles. The husband Cooked. This was very tasty.

Friday: I was working so I had a salad at the work cafeteria. And a chocolste chip cookie. They have the best chocolate chip cookies at work. The family at home had take out pizza, wings, and watched Sleeping Beauty.

Saturday: Breakfast sandwiches, cucumbers, and fruit.

Sunday: Tortellini and gnocchi. Some with red sauce some plain.

Hope you have a lovely week. Has anything gone awry for you lately?