A shady basketball court – on of my grateful things lately.
Welp the dishwasher was broken for much of last week. The last day my brother and his in laws were in town, right after I cooked dinner for 12 people, it decided to not turn on, after the Husband had loaded 12 people’s worth of dishes into it. For a while, we limped along and washed dishes by hand, but eventually we gave up and started eating on paper plates. The Husband had given me a hard time a couple months ago when I bought the Costco sized pack of Chinet for a party. Well, who’s laughing now?
Growing up, we never had a dishwasher. My mother taught me to wash dishes at an early age. I also learned how to wash dishes in Home Ec. Our Home Ec teacher taught us the two sink method – you fill one sink with soapy water, and wash in that sink and then rinse in the other sink. We have only one sink in our kitchen so I fill a bowl with soapy water to wash. The home ec teacher did say that if you only had one sink to fill that sink with soapy water and then rinse under a light trickle of water to prevent diluting the soapy water too much. But we don’t have a sink stopper hence the “fill another bowl” method.
The first time we moved into a house with a dishwasher, I was thirteen. My parents lived in that house for probably twenty years and I don’t think they ever used the dishwasher to wash dishes. They did use it to store dishes, however, so it’s not as if it went completely unused.
Anyhow I think dishwashers are the norm now. I certainly use it to wash the majority of my dishes. Even the week that the family was away and I was all on my own – I still amassed dishes in the dishwasher until there was a full load to run.
But man, this past week or so of being without a dishwasher was tough… A family of 5 generates a lot of dishes, even when we are all out of the house for the majority of the day. Things I realized when we were doing all the dishes by hand: 1) It’s not just about the washing, it’s about the drying too. We don’t have a dish rack, just one of those super absorbent mats on which we put clean, drippy dishes. This was actually a huge disagreement between me and the Husband early in our marriage. He grew up where everything was put in the dishwasher and the counters were kept clear. I grew up without a dishwasher and the dishes just drained in the drying rack on the counter. Anyhow, I couldn’t convince him of the need for a drying rack so we just use drying mats now. Which is fine…. until you have a ga-billion dishes to do all the time and they don’t all fit on the mat. So you have to dry them and put them away so that there is room on the mat for all the other dishes coming down the pipeline. This is partly why it takes so long to get through the dishes. Eventually we realized this and someone always had drying duty during our evening clean up time. I guess I never really understood the phrase, “I wash, you dry” until now. (Although I just had a friend suggest that we should have put the dishes in the non-working dishwasher to dry, clearing off counter space. That’s brilliant. Must remember for next time.)
2) Another dish decision – wash now or wash later? I suppose this is also a decision when the dishwasher is working, but it seems like a bigger decision when hand washing dishes looms in one’s future. Wash everything as I go, after each meal, each snack, each packed lunch? Or let it sit in a pile and do it all in one go? I am definitely a “accumulate and do it all in one go” type of person. But when it’s just one fork or plate, it’s just as easy to put it straight into the dishwasher.
Anyhow, the dishwasher is now fixed, after having one mis-scheduled appointment, for which I sat at home and no one ever arrived….
The other exciting weekend happening was that we lost power for six hours on a Saturday night. A storm came through fast and furious and left huge swaths of the DC area without power. So we decided to go out to eat. The restaurant was bustling and it took a while to get us our food, but we were in no rush to go home and sit in our dark, warm, stuffy house. When we got home, we went for a walk, and I tried to capture the amazing lightning in the sky, though I fail:
That light behind the trees is lightning.
The Sunday after that was such a perfectly chill day. We had waffles in the morning and then spent some time tidying. Then we went to a park for a couple hours, then the two little kids had skating lessons. Then we went grocery shopping and then came home. It was such a nice combination of chores and low key fun stuff None of our adventures were huge or novel – they were familiar and routine. Afterwards, I thought, “If every day could be like today, that would be awesome!”
Other nice things in my life lately:
-Going to the opera and going to the theatre. I went to watch a rehearsal of the other opera that my current company is putting on. It was a beautiful production with some really wonderful performances. How awesome it is to just walk into the building next door and see an opera! Then a couple days later, the Husband and 11 year old and I went to see The Play That Goes Wrong. The premise is that a group of people are putting on a play and onstage mishaps just keep happening – people keep missing lines, props are misplaced, the doors don’t work, the set falls apart…. I’ve written in the past about onstage mishaps that I’ve experienced… well this was two hours of onstage mishaps. It was side splittingly funny. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in the theatre. Part of the fun for me was that there was a Stage Manager character and his booth was actually in the house and seeing him do his job (or sometimes screw up his job) was was both nail biting and hilarious. I know some people go to the theatre expecting to be moved to devastation, and that’s what makes it a worthwhile experience, but I think we undersell how powerful joy and laughter can be in a theatre too.
That’s the “stage manger’s booth” on the left.
-One day, I had the afternoon off from work, so I picked up the three year old from school early, and took her to the pool. The pool was pretty empty at 1pm on a weekday afternoon; I think there was only one or two other families there. It was one of the days that was in the mid-nineties, so pool time, broken up by lots of snacks, was such a great way to spend a few hours. Having one on one time with the three year old was pretty great too. I’ve been feeling bad that she goes to day care while I have adventures with the other two kids, and I think she was feeling a little left out too.
Mommy daughter date – pool snacks and swimming on a 90 degree day.
-One day, I treated myself to a boba tea. My usual order of black tea, 25% sweetness (I usually get no sweetness, but this place didn’t have the option), with both boba and lychee jelly. Well, to my delight, the lychee jelly was shaped like stars. That little bit of whimsy really made my day.
Stars make my day!
– Discovering that there is a stylus on my computer and I can use it to draw on groundplans! My laptop can flip to be used as a tablet, which I knew. I did not know that there was a stylus tucked into the computer as well. I was poking around on the laptop one day, trying to figure out why I didn’t have any internet connection and I discovered a stylus tucked into the bottom. This was a real game changer for me. One of my jobs is to make “minis” for our books. A mini is a small version of the set’s groundplan, where we write down staging notes. Often time (these days), I get a PDF version of the groundplan, but it usually has all sorts of writing and extraneous lines on it – like measurements and dimensions of various parts of the set, or indicators of where things are hung overhead. So I usually take a PDF snapshot capture of the groundplan and plop it into Paint and edit it there, erasing lines, adding lines, etc. . I am sure there are better ways to do this, but this is how I learned to clean up a mini. And I do all this manipulation on the computer with my mouse. Which can be frustratingly imprecise and tedious. Well, the stylus has made this process as easy as drawing and erasing with a pencil – this last show, making the minis was so much easier.
A peek at my work life. It’s a round tower with stairs going around it and a table in the middle.
Now that I look at it, the groundplans kind of remind me of those pictures of “cowboys making eggs.”:
Drawn with my stylus!!
Grateful For: – Dishwashing gloves. When I was younger, my mother always made me wear dishwashing gloves when I did the dishes. I thought they were cumbersome and silly so I once I was out of the house, I didn’t bother to wear them anymore. But then I got eczema on my hands and the dermatologist’s number one recommendation? To stop doing the dishes. His other recommendation was to get a platinum wedding ring. Well neither of those were going to happen. So I started wearing gloves to wash dishes and my hands stopped getting so chapped. Mom was right. -Shady paths on which to run. Last week was so so so hot. Consistently in the 90s and humid too. The air was thick, the sun was bright. I am so grateful that there are several options for me to run on tree lined paths. -Shady basketball courts. I’m glad that our local basketball court is surrounded by tall trees, so that it stays shady until at least noon. We’ve gone to shoot hoops early in the morning a few times to beat the heat, but being in the shade also makes it more enjoyable. – The privilege of knowing some good people. I have two new-ish friends who are moving. One is moving overseas – her husband is in the foreign service. The other friend is moving across the country for work. I’m sad they are leaving because I don’t always find it easy to make friends and these two people were just souls I clicked with right away. One of them, I met at the school bus stop and our casual “Good morning!” over the school year became long walks and coffee and just standing at the bus stop chatting long after the bus had borne our kids off. I just feel so lucky to have been able to connect. – A new to us bike. The friend who is moving across the country actually gave us her son’s bike as they couldn’t take it with them. Our six year old is finally learning to ride a bike with lots of help from every one!
Big family push
Looking Forward To: – More visits from family. My sister in law is in town. They have gone off to the western part of the state for a couple days and then will be back, so I will look forward to them -Running. I don’t particularly like running – I find it hard and often tedious. I’m slow. It takes a lot of effort. It makes me hot and sweaty. But I do recognize that I feel better physically and more alert mentally when I do get a run in, so I make and effort to fit a run in when I can, often at work. This week, though, I noticed something – as I was packing my running shoes and running clothes into my tote bag to take to work, I was struck with a feeling of excitement. I wasn’t excited to do the actual running, but I was really happy that I could look forward to having the time to run and be outside. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. Just the simple act of packing my running stuff to take to work made the day seem like it was going to be okay – I could start the day hopeful that I could do something good for myself at some point. – Tech! This week is tech. It’s always exciting and exhausting, taking a show from the rehearsal hall to the stage.
What We Ate : I think I’m behind in writing down our dinner – so here’s two weeks’ worth:
Monday: Fish taco, made by Husband
Tuesday: Sandwiches from The Sandwich Shop before the opera. They had a broccoli rabe and sun-dried tomato sandwich that was divine!
Wednesday: Pasta and Meatballs.
Thursday: Grilled Cheese and dumplings. Fast thrown together meal as we were trying to get to basketball.
Friday: My mom make three cup chicken and rice. A Taiwanese dish that is sooo tasty. Eaten in the theatre lobby before the show.
Saturday: Pizza and The Sandlot. A lovely lovely movie.
Sunday: Chinese food – a new to us place that we wanted to try out. The food was very very spicy. The Husband made milkshakes at home afterwards.
Monday: Zucchini tart and green salad. I always forget how easy a vegetable tart is when you have puff pastry in the freezer.
Tuesday: Greek Chicken and Cabbage Slaw. The Husband made this. I wish I had the recipe because it was really good.
Wednesday: Sauteed tofu and green beans.
Thursday: Lemon and brown rice chicken soup from Grains for Every Season. Really tasty and made for good leftover.
Friday: Pizza and Brooklyn 99. We had friends over and were going to watch Parent Trap but the kids were too busy playing so the grown ups watched six episodes of Brooklyn 99 instead. It’s a great show.
Saturday: The day the power went out.
Sunday: Zucchini Orzo – recipe from New York Times. Meh. The flavors were good, but it was mushy. I always like the idea of orzo, but the reality is always just disapointing.
Nothing like the first of the month to recap the books I read two months ago… I read more books than normal in June- thanks partly to my solo week at home! These past few months I’ve been really enjoying reading hard copy books. I read a lot via Libby on my phone, but there is something glorious to be about sitting with a book and turning the pages and flipping back and forth. I think the family being away really upped my “read in bed” lounge-y time.
The Chuckling Finger by Mabel Seeley – I was unfamiliar with Seeley, but I guess this American writer was hugely popular in the late 30s and 40s. She wrote mystery and crime novels. I picked up this book because I saw it recommended in The Week – can’t remember by whom. It’s like an Agatha Christie mystery with a touch more gothic in it. The story centers around Ann Gray, who has come to visit her cousin at her house on the lake. Mysterious accidents and eventually bodies ensue. It’s not the most well plotted of mysteries, but the heroine is plucky and smart and quite daring. Good if you’ve exhausted Agatha Christie and looking for something similar.
Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez – This 2017 novel by Canadian writer Hernandez centers around three children whose lives intertwine at a literacy center for low income families in a suburb outside of Toronto. Such a well crafted book, with story lines and characters flowing parallel and then intersecting in heart-wrenching ways. I think this novel really showed how hard it is to be a good parents when your basic needs are not being met – it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in novel form. Another central theme in this book is how children can simultaneously be so vulnerable yet so resilient. Even when their lives are hard, the characters manage to find friends and moments of joy. Reading about children who are abused or mistreated is always hard for me, yet Hernandez manages to treat all her characters with empathy and compassion, even when they are making really bad decisions. Quotes I highlighted: – “He lay his daughter on the bed face up, which made her snore so perfectly. She was the most beautiful sack of potatoes he ever did see.” Yep, I’ve been there. -“Sylvie’s dad was on that couch for months. Jonathon, like many here, was a sad combination of bad cards dealt and bad choices made.” -“When you’re dead, you can’t tell someone, “You will change your ways,” because their ways won’t continue ever again.”
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – full cast audio production – I listened to this book on my commute and loved it. It was clever, funny, deeply human and vastly entertaining. I laughed out loud many many times. In this novel, as the world hurtles towards Armageddon an Angel and a Demon contemplate life and how much the actually enjoy Earth and don’t want it to end. I don’t always like full cast audio productions, but I found this one to be pretty great.
When a Rogue Meets his Match by Elizabeth Hoyt – This is the second book of Hoyt’s Greycourt series. It was … fine. Not particularly memorable – I just had to google the book to remind myself of the plot – it involves a forced marriage and then BIG SECRETS and then bad people. In my notes, I wrote, “The chemistry between the main characters was hot. Plotting was kind of awkward. I’m not sure I understand the motivation for all the intrigue.”
Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen – So I got to the end of When a Rogue Meets his Match and… there was another book appended to the back. I figured, may as well read it too. This novella is pretty much a vengeance plot. Guy says, “Help me get revenge.” Girl says, “What will you give me?” He says, “Whatever you want.” And they fall in the love in the meantime. Kelly Bowen is new to me. I thought her writing was very good, but I thought that the trauma and backstory of the mysterious hero was overwrought. I don’t mean to say trauma can’t be… well, traumatic, but just there was something almost sadistic about the amount of suffering he was made to go through here.
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez: This novel is set at Tawawa House, a holiday resort in Ohio where white men would bring their enslaved Black mistresses. I was fascinated by this little slice of history – about what would motivate a man to bring his enslaved mistress to a resort and what it was like for the women to leave the plantation. The novel centers around a group of six slaves who meet at Tawawa House and the friendships they form and how their lives shift as they return to the resort year after year. Not going lie – this book was a challenging and gut-wrenching read, as one would expect of a book centered around the lives of a group of slaves. There is a lot of brutal sexual assault depicted as well as the mental and emotional and physical cruelty of slavery. Even still, I found this book gripping, as it followed the main character and her conflicted relationship with her master.
Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan – The title pretty much says it all. I found this book fascinating. Duncan delves into the history of how we categorize, track and find information in the books that we read. The book is a little dry, very witty and definitely nerdy. I mean there is a whole chapter about page numbers. I take page numbers for granted, but Duncan points out that page numbers were kind of useless before the printing press was invented then goes into the history of page numbers including what is one of the earliest surviving page numbers. Also, apparently indexes were controversial when they first became a thing because people thought that scholars would just read indexes rather than the real text. Also – did you know there was a society of professional indexers? I guess someone has to create an index, but it had never occurred to me before that that could be a profession. And in our world of AI and Google and e-book search functions – are professional indexers going to be obsolete? Duncan does provide an example of a computer generated index and a human generated index of this book, and one can certainly tell the difference. Indeed, the human generated index is one of the most amusingly tongue in cheek things I’ve read in a while. Definitely don’t skip reading the index of this book if you read it.
Unshuttered: Poems by Patricia Smith – Smith collects nineteenth century photographs of Black people and this volume of poetry was inspired by those photographs. Photographs of Black people of the time are very rare as Black people did not often have the money or freedom to have their portraits taken. For each photograph in this volume of poetry, Smith has written a poem that speculates as to whom the subject is. Both the pictures and the poems are haunting.
Slay by Brittney Morris – YA novel, our Mother Daughter book club book this month. I heard about this book on the podcast What Should I Read Next and immediately put it on my holds list from the library. This novel centers around 17 year old Kiera who has developed a video game that only Black people can play – the worlds and characters and superpowers were all created with the Black experience in mind. No one knows that she is behind this hugely popular game and when a teenager is killed over the game, Kiera has to decide how to handle the public scrutiny and accusations of “anti-white discrimination” that the game starts to get all while. I thought this was a very thought provoking book – Morris speaks more eloquently about the need for safe spaces and for the difficulty of being unable to assert your own racial identity than any piece of non-fiction I’ve read. At the same time, the book isn’t preachy or didactic – all these thorny issues are wrapped up in a well plotted novel that moves with momentum. I really enjoyed this book. The 11 year old did as well.
On my proverbial night stand: Wild Genius of the Moors – Still reading about the Brontes. The past couple chapters have had so. much. death. Sad sad times.
Keeper of the Lost Cities by Sharon Messenger: Mother daughter book club book. My daughter suggested this one. She is obsessed with this series about a girl who discovers she has magical powers and leaves her known family and earth.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – as part of Engie’s blogger book club. I’ve never read this book before and am finding it beautiful in its details of time, place, and character.
My Darkest Prayer by S.A. Cosby – I loved his novel Razorblade Tears. This is one of his first efforts and while it is a little rough around the edges, I’m enjoying the prose very much.
How is it already almost the end of July? It’s been a lot this month – and I drafted this post when it was a weekly update and it’s gotten longer and longer and now it’s practically a monthly update.
So the short version: The husband and kids came home from Chicago! I closed a show! My parents came to town! I went camping! My brother and his family came to visit! It’s a billion degrees outside and we sweltered! We went on all sorts of adventures while falling steadily behind in housework and life admin! The pile of laundry grows mountainous! I started rehearsing a second show! It never. lets. up.
I know most people work and manage life simultaneously all the time (like the Husband, for one), but prioritizing and balancing all the things is hard, and I’m not used to doing it for such long stretches of time. I’ve been working on one show or another – or sometimes two at a time – since February with only three weeks of in that time, and most weeks with only one day off. I’m always grateful for the work, but man… Usually when I’m in the thick of things, I can see a stretch of time off from work and can push tasks off til then, but it’s been harder to do that so far this year. Plus commuting for this summer gig. Spending 60-90 minutes a day in a car might not feel like a lot in the moment, but it does eat up my day. Compared to my regular gig which is like 30-60 minutes a day, this gig is an additional 30 minutes a day that I’m losing. Which might not seem like a lot, but that’s prime laundry folding time right there. Anyhow. I’m really excited by the projects that I’ve worked on and the people I’ve been working with this year, so I’m not saying I regret taking these jobs. It’s just a lot of balls are getting dropped right now. I need to remind myself that I’m lucky to have work in an industry where sustained work in one location can be hard to find and find better ways to tackle life tasks.
Ever since I opened my first show and the family got back from Chicago I’ve felt out of my regular routine – there was adjusting to the family being back and also to not having to be at the theatre every day for the week I was in performance, and being home with the six year old. Then my family visiting and then starting a new show, with a very different rehearsal schedule from my last show. I think I need better anchors in my life so that the constant change does not throw me as much. I haven’t even been keeping with the small habits like ten minutes of yoga or Wordle or Duolingo. Here’s the thing, I’ve realized, is that there are a million tiny adjustments – a combination of school being out and my current job – and it’s thrown a lot of the habits that I make based on my school year routines out of wack. For example: – Writing here. For my current gig, I use my personal laptop, which means it mostly lives in my laptop bag and goes back and forth to work with me. Small shift. But it also means that the laptop isn’t sitting on my desk, and it then takes two additional steps to actually be able to sit down and write – 1) take laptop out of bag, 2) find a work surface. Two small steps are enough of a barrier that I’m not writing as much as I would like. I supposed I could write on my tablet or phone, but that’s not as easy. – Duolingo and Wordle. I used to get to work about ten minutes early, sit down and do the daily Wordle and Duolingo before I turned on my work computer. But with my longer commute, I’m not getting to work with that ten minutes to spare. In fact, I’m usually five minutes late to work. So I’ve definitely lost all my streaks. Thanks, guilt-inducing green owl! – Cleaning out my car. During the school year, I have a routine on Wednesday mornings. I drop the 11 year old at piano lessons at 7:15a, I go get gas, I go pick up breakfast, I pick up the 11 year old and we head home. Wednesday was always gas day. Even if my tank is 3/4 full, I still stop and get gas on Wednesday mornings while the oldest is at piano lessons. I very rarely have to fill my tank more than once a week so having a designated day and time to get gas takes that mental weight off my plate. Also while I fill my tank, I take all the trash out of my car and shake out the floor mats. Well, lately we’ve had a piano lesson hiatus. And then last week, my father filled my gas tank because he was using ti to run errands, so on Wednesday, there was not need to get gas.\. I was driving around the other day and I noticed that there was more trash in my car than normal, and then it hit me… I haven’t been doing my weekly piano lesson/get gas routine. Such a little errand, but the regularity of it ensured that my car got picked up at least once a week. No wonder the car looked kind of like a pit. – Daily 10 minute yoga. I used to do 10 minutes of yoga the minute the 3 year old left for school. Inspired by B.J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits, I used the door closing behind the 3 year old as the prompt to lay out my yoga mat and do ten minutes of yoga. Well the 3 year old hasn’t been going to school until much later now that it’s summer, so the yoga mat hasn’t been laid out because we are all leaving the house at the same time. Yet another school year habit downed by shift in schedule. I think I might need to shift to doing 10 minutes of yoga first thing in the morning. This is absolutely fixable. Though when I try to do yoga while the 4 year old is home, I become a human jungle gym and it can be very distracting. Anyhow, I feel like I need new anchor, new prompts- summer time routines, I guess. (Though the summer is now practically over?). Or maybe when each shift happens, I need to look at the schedule, and re-order, add, or delete things. Something to ponder.
So fun happenings…. After coming back from their trip, the eleven year old went to basketball camp for two weeks while the six year old and hung out at home. Since I didn’t have to be at the theatre every day, it didn’t really seem to make sense to put him in camp, so we just hung out all week and had some staycation type adventures. We went to the park (for four hours one day!), we went ice skating (perfect for an 80 degree day), we went to the library, we went to a puppet show at a different park. I know this would have been prime life catch up time, but I wanted to also prioritize having one on one time with six year old. Since he started school I haven’t had as much one on one time with him and I miss just hanging out with him. This is true for all my kids and I want to do better.
We had a fun family food adventure too – one day I had to be up in Rockville to retrieve my phone (see below, gratitude), and decided to check out a new-ish Taiwanese restaurant that was in the back of a gas station. I had heard about this place in the local magazine and looking at the menu, I could see that it had a lot of the foods I remember eating at the night markets in Taiwan. Walking in, I was a little skeptical. I mean this was in a gas station, after all, and the restroom was a little …. Well, let’s just say when we walked in, the six year old said, “I think someone died here.” But we ordered our food and sat down at one of three tables and waited.
And the food was really tasty! The moment it came to our table, the smells transported me to hot sticky evenings wandering the night market, the air heavy with the smell of fried food and five spice. We ordered popcorn chicken, fried chicken wings, dumplings, the pork chop bento box:
fried chicken wings
And the best was the stinky tofu. Stinky tofu is fried fermented tofu. It does in truth smell like the inside of an outhouse, but dip it in sweet spicy sauce and take a bite, the crispy exterior giving way to pillowy soft tofu inside. So tasty!
Stinky tofu! The six year old is eating the bento box – with pork belly on the rice.
The first weekend in July, we took the Metro down to the Mall and went to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The two themes this year were the Ozarks and World Religions. We mostly explored the Ozarks section. There was a lot going on, and we only saw a fraction of the offerings. We went to a talk about boat building traditions, we listened to some bluegrass music while the Husband enjoyed some beer from the Ozarks Brewing Company. We talked to a basket maker.
Fishing boat. You stand where the three year old is and stab the fish!
Basketmaking. Making strips of wood from oak planks to weave into a basket.
enjoying bluegrass and beer.
We had some fried chicken and tamales – I love how the food matches the themes of each year. We talked to a lady who had an exhibit about cooking over an open fire outside with a cast iron pot. We went to a talk by chef Tim Ma, someone who has spent his career reconciling being Chinese American with serving American Chinese food. I really enjoyed hearing him talk about how he didn’t actually learn to cook until he went to culinary school, and how he now tries to. The eleven year old asked a question during the Q&A and I was really proud of her for doing that! Also, he talked about using dehyradted garlic in his cooking because you have to re-constitute it which makes is less likely to burn when you cook with it. Someone asked him where he gets it from, and he said, “I get it from my Chinese food supplier.” which is not helpful for me. I was hoping I could find it at HMart. I’m now on the hunt.
Tim Ma making Springfield Cashew Chicken.
The day was very very hot. At one point we ducked into the American History Museum to fill our water bottles and get a rest from the heat and boy did the air conditioning feel good. I also thought it was a great idea that the Festival was handing out cooling towels as swag. We grabbed one, but should have grabbed two!
Hot day, cool towel.
After that we walked back up to Chinatown to have dinner at our favorite noodle place, partly inspired by something Tim Ma had said that afternoon. During the Q&A, someone had asked him what his favorite Chinese restaurant was and he said that he always encourages people to eat in Chinatown if they have one because Chinatowns are slowly disappearing across the country due to the pressures of economics and development. Of course we were more than eager to do our part!
The fountain at the Sculpture Garden, looking on to the National Archives. I love how symmetrical DC can be.
Since it was still pretty early when we got to Chinatown, we decided to stop into the Smithsonian Museum for American Art and Portrait Gallery. The Husband and the 11 year old went to explore the galleries while I took the two little kids to the kids’ creative space where they spent most of their time playing with this video portrait set up where you could take multiple portraits of yourself. It was kid of fun to see a whole screen made up of small squares of the kids.
It was certainly a full day – Festival, Museum, Dinner and home before bedtime. How lucky we are that we can hop on the metro and so easily have such a great day!
The following week, my parents arrived and I took the two younger kids camping along with my parents. The 11 year old had basketball camp so stayed home. I have a whole separate post for that camping trip, but we had a good time and three nights doesn’t seem like enough time for camping anymore. Though I don’t know if I can fit more than three days’ worth of food in my cooler, so that’s a dilemma
The day after we got back from camping, I started my next show and my family came to visit. I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted with my family while they were here because I was working, but one fun thing we did was take a boat ride to Mount Vernon. My father has been reading a lot of books on the Revolutionary War lately and I thought it might be nice way to visit Washington’s estate by sailing up the Potomac. Much nicer than driving an hour either way, besides which we wouldn’t have been able to fit everyone in the two cars that we had. So we all got on the metro at 7am on a Sunday morning and rode all the way down to the wharf where we boarded a boat. I have to say my brother’s family and his in laws were such troopers about the 7 am departure, having gotten off a plane just the evening before.
Approaching Mount Vernon from the Potomac River.
The boat departed at 8:30am and after a gentle trip down the Potomac, we arrived at Mount Vernon around 10am. We disembarked at the pier and walked up to the mansion where we took a tour.
The Mansion.
Some of the highlights for me –
Seeing this harpsichord – I always like seeing musical instruments:
This key to the Bastille, given to George Washington by Lafayette.
underneath the key is a picture of the Bastille.
George and Martha Washington’s bedroom. Martha had that bed specially made for George because he was so tall.
And I’m always fascinated by kitchens. This one was a separate building from the main mansion. Because of fire hazards and all that.
Also the outhouse. Because I find that fascinating too.
There are three toilet seats in there! Do three people use the facility at once? or is it to spread out the… ahem.. offerings?
I will say, I think going to Mount Vernon by boat didn’t quite leave enough time to fully explore Mount Vernon. We arrived at 10:00am and the return boat was at 1:15pm. Of course we had to eat lunch in there somewhere, so it really only left about 2 hours to explore. We did manage to walk most of the grounds in that time, and visit George and Martha’s grave, but we did not visit the Museum at all, or the farm, and we kind of sped through the gardens. I just wished we had time to stay and linger in the gardens and read every placard.
Boat ride back to DC
The rest of my brother’s visit was pretty low key. He and his in laws took off for Shenandoah for a couple days, and I went back to work while my parents stayed home with the kids. When my brother and co. got back they all went down to the Mall to see some museums, but I was working, so I didn’t go. But I think it’s great that there is so much to see in DC via Metro that I don’t have to accompany guests around all the time. I can hand them Metro cards and just say, “Have fun!” and they will be entertained.
We did go to a concert at Wolf Trap – it was actually the reason that my brother’s family came out in the first place. Joe Hisaishi, who composed music for the Studio Ghibli films, was conducting a concert of his film music. My brother and his family are huge Studio Ghibli fans. At first I was a little reluctant to go to the concert because it was late at night, and then it poured rain, and I was even more skeptical since it was an outdoor venue, albiet covered. But the weather cleared up in time for the concert and it was actually quite nice. I’ve worked at this venue, but I’ve never seen a concert there, and now I get why it’s such a big summer event – a warm summer breeze, and music, and fresh air… it just felt like summer in every way.
The last day my brother was here, we went to hot pot with. Hot pot is always fun and the place we went to now also has robot servers which will bring you your order, so that was fun and the kids got a real kick out of that. Originally we were going to get soup pots to share, but the kids all insisted that they get their own pot, so everyone got their own pot, including the 3 year old.
Insisted on her own potRobot Waiter!Ice jelly!
So that was the adventures so far in July. Now we’re back to the normal grind of things.
Fascinating read – this article about the mathematically correct way to tie your shoes. I never gave a thought to which was the proper way to tie my shoes – tie, one loop, wind around, pull through, tighten loops. But apparently, in each step, bringing the lace over or under makes a huge difference between a knot that tightens as it moves and one that loosens. Maybe it was because it was 2am and I was still awake, but I found this article so interesting and immediately grabbed my shoes and started making bows. (Revenge bedtime procrastination at it’s finest!) This also explains why using the bunny rabbit ears method of tying laces has never worked for me – it’s the wrong combination of over/under. Also – the six year old doesn’t know how to tie his shoes yet – well, he doesn’t have lace up shoes right now, so it’s kind of a low priority task – but I’m pretty sure the 11 year old was tying her laces at this age, though I didn’t teach her. I think she learned through a combination of friends and observation. Anyone have a tried and true method for teaching shoe tying?
Grateful For: 1) The kind person who found my phone and turned it in. I had gone with the six year old to meet up with a friend and her son at an outdoor puppet show. After the show, the kids played on the playground nearby while my friend and I caught up. The are moving across the country soon and I’m a little sad – she is someone whom I befriended randomly at an event at a park. One of those, “Hey you’re cool, let’s exchange numbers and hang out!” strangers who become friends. Anyhow, then it started to rain, and we made plans to rendez vous at the ice rink and have lunch at the snack bar there. Well, I got in my car and realized I couldn’t find my phone. (Side note – I thought it notable that not being able to find my phone meant that I had resisted looking at it for 2.5 hours. Part of me thought, “Wow… see, you can go a couple hours without your phone! Try to channel that more!”) But anyhow, I went back to the picnic tables where we were sitting and also to where the puppet show was, but it was pouring rain by then, so I gave up and just headed to the ice rink. Of course, I got in the car and realized that I couldn’t use the phone to navigate me to the ice rink. Luckily I had a vague idea where we were, yet even still I did have to pull a couple U turns and at one point found myself driving up the drive to the county correctional facility, thinking it was just another residential road. It was not. I did eventually make it to the rink. We had lunch and chatted, and then I went back to the park to try to see if I could find my phone now that the rain had lightened up. Still no. So then I gave up and went home, thinking of all the things that I needed my phone for and low level panicking because we were about to leave to go camping and I didn’t want to leave without a phone. Anyhow, I got home, all discouraged, and there was, curiously, a note tucked in my storm door. It was from a police officer, saying that my phone was with the Rockville Police. Relief poured euphorically over me and I felt like the luckiest person in the world. (I did wonder how they were able to track me down, but they are the police so I imagine it is in their best interest to be able to figure these things out.) Anyhow, I called the police station and they said if I could get there before the shift change they could hand me my phone – something about after shift change the phone has to get catalogued and put into a lost and found and it’s more steps to get it. So the six year old and I zipped up there and got the phone – which they handed over without my even having to show any ID, surprisingly. And to celebrate, we got some boba tea (from a new to me tea shop. It was a little sweet for my taste, but the owner was very kind.). And then capped the day off with Taiwanese food. Man, to go from desperation over my lost phone to joy at having it back all in one day was exhausting.
2) Grateful for being hired for a gig and for the crew at the theatre for making sure everything went smoothly. I got a call to stage manage a small concert event for the Embassy of Peru and since I like working for pay, I decided to do it. I don’t do a lot of one off event type gigs – I like the comfort of rehearsing a piece and helping it develop and knowing it very well before we get in front of an audience. These gigs where I come in and a show magically just happens often involve a lot of uncertainty and quick decision making, and let’s just say it’s not my comfort zone. One the one hand, one day gigs are very high pressure because you only have one shot at it. On the other hand, they are kind of low pressure because you only have to do it once. How’s that’s for irony. On top of that, the person who hired me mentioned that the producer did not speak a lot of English. I speak no Spanish. I wasn’t really sure how it would all pan out. But luckily it was at a theatre that I had worked in many times with a crew that was helpful and who I knew had my back. And once I got to the theatre, I learned that the group actually spoke enough English to communicate what track should be played for which dance number, and when a microphone was needed, and which side of stage people were coming from, when something had to be moved in order for there to be space for the dancers. And another performer taught me how to say “Thirty minutes” and “Fifteen minutes” and “Ten minutes” in Spanish. So all in all, things went quite well and everyone was happy and I got to hear some amazing singing.
3)Peaches. It’s stone fruit season, one of my favorite fruit seasons. Is there anything more lovely than a ripe juicy peach – sweet, syrupy and fragrant?
Looking Forward To: – Having the last half of August off. Like I mentioned above, I haven’t had a whole lot of time off this summer and I want to have day trips and pool days and ice cream trips. I just read about this Icelandic tradition of meandering to find ice cream and meandering back. Sounds lovely.
– Getting my show paperwork done early. I’m trying to be less last minute in getting my show running paperwork done. I used to wait until we’ve staged the whole show in the rehearsal room then just sit down and plug through the running cues for everything in one or two long sessions at the computer, but this time I’m trying to plug in the information into the runsheets as we stage each scene. We have a pretty short tech process for this next show, so I knew I wanted to get ahead of the usual paperwork deadline. It’s probably a more efficient way to do paperwork; I think I usually wait in case there are changes made, but I’m learning it’s easier to get the first draft of a document done then go back and make changes then it is to wait until I have all the information before starting the runsheet – there will always be changes so no point in waiting until there are none.
– Agatha Christie radio plays. I’ve discovered on Libby, a whole series of radio adaptations of Christie’s mystery novels. They are usually only and hour or two long, so perfect for my commute – long enough to really engage me, but short enough that I can get through one in a few days. It makes me almost look forward to my commute. I also have a bunch of CDs that I bought in college that I have never listened to, and since my car has a CD player, I think I might take time to work my way through some new to me works. Last week, I listened to the 2005 musical The Light in the Piazza, which I found touching though not very hummable. I think perhaps it’s better onstage than on CD.
What We Ate: So far in July… it’s been a lot of eating out…
Saturday: Pizza and Star Wars. (I’m pretty sure I was working this night)
Sunday: Chinatown Express -our favorite noodle place in Chinatown
Monday: Salt and Pepper Eggplant and Tomato/Egg Scramble. From Hetty McKinnon’s book To Asia with Love. The sauteed tomato with eggs is a traditional Taiwanese dish – I made it with canned tomatoes since I didn’t have fresh, and it was really tasty. Good pantry recipe. The Salt and Pepper eggplant was tasty, but the eggplant took too much of the oil and was a little soggy. I need to trouble shoot that for next time because I thought the dish was good enough to try again.
Tuesday – Thurday: Camping.
Friday – Pizza (The Husband made) and The Black Stallion. My mother chose this 1979 movie for movie night – I guess she had seen it when it first came out and the six year old reminded her of the boy in the movie. I enjoyed it, though I thought it ended rather abruptly and I do wish they hadn’t tried to race the horse, plotwise.
Saturday: Tortellini with red sauce, garlic bread, roasted zucchini, salad, turkey meatballs. This was the day that my brother and his in-laws arrived. I always feel like it’s nice to have a home cooked meal after getting off a plane, so offered to cook. Even though I was feeding twelve people, this was a pretty easy meal to throw together.
Sunday: We went out to eat with everyone. Sort of to celebrate my parents’ 50th Wedding anniversary. I had mussels and oysters.
Monday: The Husband made kung pao tofu.
Tuesday: The Husband made stir fried garlic eggplant.
Wednesday: I have scribbled down Yogurt/ wings. This can’t possibly be what we had for dinner…. Maybe it’s what I ate while at work?
Thursday: My brother and his family/ in laws came over for dinner again. I basically looked in the freezer and fridge and pulled everything grillable out and picked up some vegetables from the farm stand to supplement. We had: Grilled salmon, grilled tofu and tomatoes (from the Green Barbeque cookbook), grilled pesto gnocchi (also from the Green Barbeque – while I thought this was tasty and clever to grill the gnocchi, I think roasting gnocchi on a sheetpan gets much the same result and is less fussy. One of those, “Glad I tried it, but don’t need to do it again” recipes.), Black Bean Cucumber Cabbage Rice Noodle Salad (from Hetty McKinnon’s To Asia with Love. Love this recipe), also grilled zucchini and corn.
Friday: Dinner at a brewpub near Wolf Trap before our concert. I had mussels. I seem to like having mussels when I go out to eat. Maybe I should investigate making it at home?
I opened another show last week. Yay. The opening night show was not flawless – there was a curtain that had to be hung at intermission and we just couldn’t get it to line up as it should so we had to take it down and re-hang it three times and intermission ran long while we did this. The audience loved that, however. They came back from intermission to see us trying to fix the issue and as intermission stretched one, two, three, four.. minutes beyond expected, there was a palpable tension in the air. Every time we tried to close the curtain, I could feel the audience hold their breath, and when it didn’t work, there was a large groan of disappointment. And then when we finally got the curtain hung correctly, there was a huge burst of applause!
Prop Table ready for the start of the show! I tired something new and taped the prop list to the wall above the table. and it seemed to work well.
Tech Week: Tech week itself went fairly smoothly. I was not great about going to bed right as soon as I got home because I found that when I got home I still was faced with a stack of dirty dishes and enticing books and inviting snacks. On the other hand, I did get to sleep in (by which I mean 8:30am) in the morning since I didn’t have to be up with the kids, so sleep-wise things weren’t so bad.
Tech steps average: 14, 490 steps/ day.
Annapolis: A good friend of mine was passing through town on the Monday Juneteenth holiday so I picked her up from the train station and we decided to spend the day exploring Annapolis. I had only been to Annapolis once or twice for the boat show, and it had been many many years, so I was happy for the opportunity to visit again. One of hiking books featured a walk around historic Annapolis, so we decided to do that. Our trip to Annapolis started off with the elation of free parking. I completely understand how parking is dicatated by so much more than my need for a place to put my car, but it still irks me to have to pay for it. But since we only had a couple hours in Annapolis, I decided to put the car in a garage and just pay for parking. And then on the way to pay, I saw this sign:
Scoring free parking always makes me feel like that day is going well. (And I know I’m probably upsetting some balance of economics and city planning, but…) First stop – we had lunch and then visited a hat store.
I had lost my sunhat last year and was looking for a new one. I particularly wanted one with a large brim and which I could pack. This hat store had some veeerry fancy hats- there was a cream and navy striped hat that I loved, but for the price, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a hat that would show dirt and couldn’t be tossed in the washing machine. I decided upon a red hat- my favorite colour!
My new red hat!
We then took this walking tour from my hiking book – Best Day Hikes Near Washington, DC. Now a city stroll isn’t what I would typically categorize as a hike, but why not? The walking tour first took us by the Maryland State House – the oldest state house still in use in the U.S. In front of the State House was a statue of Thurgood Marshall, whom I didn’t realize was from Maryland. It was such an odd juxtaposition to see the construction cranes against the colonial architecture of the State House. I didn’t grow up in Maryland and it struck me that my kids will probably learn about Maryland state history and know more about this state than I do. I hear that a visit to the State House is something almost every middle schooler will do.
Thurgood Marshall statue. Also – that dome on top of the state house is the oldest wooden dome in the country.
The walking tour next took us through St. Johns University where we discovered a small art museum, the Mitchell Art Museum. The current exhibition was of African American art from the collection of Alitash Kebede, an art collector based in Los Angeles. It was a varied and thoughtful exhibit and one of the highlights of our walk. How wonderfully serendipitous to just stumble across this museum, and it also made for a nice break from the heat.
We continued on and saw historic row houses:
I can’t resist a good boot scraper. I love such period details that survive through the years:
More 18th century buildings:
Mural:
The walking tour ended up at City Dock where we could see boats sailing to and fro across the Chesapeake Bay. We ended up at a coffeeshop on the dock, Bitty and Beau’s, which was recommended by a friend. I don’t drink coffee, but I’m always happy to pick up beans for the Husband:
Each bag of coffee came with a postcard with a handwritten note on the back. Bitty and Beau’s was started by a couple who wanted to provide employment opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
And then we stopped for ice cream, where I saw this sign:
Well, can’t argue with that.
And then it was time to take my friend to meet up with her family and I headed home. All in all, a very nice day trip. We didn’t even get to the Naval Academy or the Maritime Museum, but I’m looking forward to being back.
The solo week. While the Husband and children were off in Chicago, I was at home trying to wrap my head around how different (yet in certain parts the same) life was like without the Husband or kids.
There were moments like me eating watermelon at 11pm at night because I cut up too much and now the tupperware lid won’t close and now I remember why we never buy watermelon – because it is such a hassle to put into the fridge. A whole watermelon is for sure not a single person endeavor.
There was laying my yoga mat out at the beginning of the week, and leaving it out all week.
There was getting to read while eating, even though it’s something I tell the kids not to do. (I’m re-thinking this now… maybe we can have books at the table for weekend lunches? Reading while eating feels like such an indulgent action, in that it revels in the solitary and almost meditative aspect of a meal rather than the social.)
Lunch on my own: pan fried tempeh, roasted zucchini with chimichurri on a bagel, salted mango salad and a Bronte biography.
There was cleaning out the fridge and reclaiming a dishwasher full of Tupperware from whatever horrific fuzzy former food matter I had stuffed in there an unspeakable number of months ago. I am a leftover food optimist. It doesn’t always work out well.
There was me spooking myself out being all alone at home and not wanting to go into the basement at night. One night I got home from work and I thought I’d just throw in a load of laundry, but then paused at the top of the stairs to the basement, hyper-aware of all the creaks and groans of a house at midnight. Or maybe, my over active imagination said, the creaks and groans of a serial killer hiding among the overflow Tupperwarebin. And then I decided to just leave the laundry for the next morning. (Fun fact -when I was growing up, I was convinced that D.B. Cooper – you know that guy who jumped from a plane somewhere over the Rockies in the 70s with a butt load of money and was never seen again – was living in our basement and refused to go down there by myself at night. Of course I never told my parents that was why. I just made up excuses. But then I told my brother and he was merciless and teased me about it all. the. time. Older brother. They can really suck.)
There was going through all the kids’ drawers and organizing their clothes – taming the unorganized explosion of clothes, the lack of specificity in storage. Hooray – now there is a place of underwear, a place for t-shirts, a place for shorts, etc. I’m hopeful that the clothes stay organized, but I don’t know that I’m holding out much hope. The children don’t seem to value having each of their drawers/bins designated for specific clothing types the way that I do. Will this appreciation for sartorial organization come with age?
There was further development in kids’ clothing – I went through all the clothes piled in the guest room and packed clothes away in labelled bins for future use. Even though I’m normally a clothes hoarder, this time I was pretty ruthless about not keeping clothes that I had no interest in putting on my kids. The cute button down shirts. The corduroy pants with buttons and zippers. The pants with drawstrings to keep them up. Love the idea, can’t imagine wanting to spend the time putting my kids in them. Or my kids having the ability to hold their pee while they try to get those pants off. Anything slightly stained, I threw out. This was a big step for my “Oh but they could use them for play clothes” inner voice. “Or for painting their bedroom.” I firmly told that inner voice that 1) all clothes are play clothes, no need to keep dingy and stained clothes just for this, and 2) Seriously? In what world are my kids ever going to be painting their bedroom. Disappointingly, the house does not look more uncluttered for all my work culling a decade of kids’ clothes. I think because these clothes are usually stuffed in closets or behind closed doors, I wouldn’t have seem them anyway and thus did not clock the clothes as a mess. The mess at times is more an emotional burden than a spatial one. Though in the case of the guest room, it certainly is the latter. The clothes are organized, but my house is nowhere near being closer to whatever Pinterest/shelter magazine/influencer minimalism that seems the ideal.
Seven bins of clothes ready to go into the attic until the next child needs them.
There was the night where at 9pm I decided I wanted to bake, so I stayed up and made soy sauce brownies and black sesame banana bread from Hetty McKinnon’s cookbook To Asia With Love.
midnight black sesame banana bread.
There was taking myself to a community festival – the One Journey Festival that celebrated refugees and their stories and contributions. I bought Turkish towels from a vendor, enjoyed African food from a food truck, and sat and listened to musicians from Africa and Afghanistan perform. The Festival was on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. I think I visited the grounds once before when I first came to DC almost twenty years ago. Between musical acts, I strolled the gardens and there was a wooded trail nearby, though it was a little too buggy for me to to linger.
It was interesting going to a festival on my own – this is the kind of thing that I usually bring the kids to, and I would encourage them to take part in the community art project and to dance to the live band. I really shouldn’t use my kids as a reason to take part in these things, yet somehow, going on my own, I felt a little self conscious about participating. It was a silly hang up, really. Art and dancing – expressions of creativity and exuberance – aren’t just for children. I felt a little jealous of the adults that I saw who participated whole-heartedly and didn’t just sit and watch.
Cathedral gardens
All in all, a full week. Curiously, I didn’t feel like I had a lot more free time than when the kids were home. Freedom, yes, but not time. Half way through the week, I realized that I so far had done a load of laundry every. single. day. The kids were gone but I was still doing daily laundry. And it was their laundry. What the what?!? The house still had to be picked up, I still had to make and eat food, I still had to go to work.
And then I realized… when the Husband is home, I have someone who splits the housework – actually someone who probably in fairness does more of the housework than I do. I think it’s a testament to how much he does that when he was gone, I didn’t feel like I gained that much time. I did sleep more – like 6-7 hours rather than 5 hours. I could do 30 mins of yoga in the morning rather than 10- which is fine; any yoga practice longer than that and I get restless. And I did read more. The mornings did feel more luxurious without a bus to catch or three lunches to pack.
But the bonus projects I took on that took more time- going through the kids’ clothes in the guest room, the One Journey festival, dinner with a friend, baking- these are things I could have done, or would have done and often do, with the kids. And the things I didn’t get done – mostly life admin things, but also blogging – these things are things I struggled to fit in regardless. Which all in all made me think that really my struggle with these tasks is not about time but about managing priorities and life inertia. Not to say one thing is more important than the other – well, maybe paying the bills is more important than finishing that book – but rather the tasks that require me to sit down at a computer and just crank things out are less appealing when I have a juicy novel in front of me. I do like writing, but actually turning on the computer always seems to take so much more effort to me than just picking up my book (or, let’s be honest, scrolling.) Knocking out a to do list requires more motivation than just kid free time I’m discovering.
I think the other place where I found space during my solo week was mentally. I didn’t quite realize how much mental space living with other people takes until I didn’t have to constantly be thinking about what the other people in my life needed on an every day level. I didn’t have to do the calculus of “do the dishes now” vs. “do the dishes later” because no one was coming to use the kitchen after me so I could just “do the dishes later” without even thinking about it. I didn’t have to think, “What will they want to eat?” or “Is someone going to be annoyed if I leave this tote bag there?” or “Do I need to intervene?” or “Do I have to pick them up or can someone else?” or “Is it worth the temper tantrum to insist on that?” or “Should I read my book or read to my kid?” When the only one who cares about what I do is myself, it feels like decisions are easier.
Mini Rant of the Week: Shorts for kids. I had to grab the 11 year old some shorts before she left on this trip. So I went to the Mall, thinking I’d just stop by JC Penny and grab some shorts. I will say that had some really great leggings marked down to $5, so I grabbed a pair of those. But the shorts.. man. Everything I could find in the Girls’ section was itty bitty short. Like in danger of flashing underwear short. “Okay,” I thought, “I’ll just buy her shorts from the Boys’ Department.” Which I do often because sometimes the boys’ stuff is sturdier and the pockets are just better. But everything in the boys’ section was these polyester athletic shorts with like a 10″ inseam. Is there no such thing as a nice 5″ inseam anymore? Or maybe this is a JCP specific issue? I didn’t really have time to go to all the stores, so I bought the boys athletic shorts, a pair of leggings and a couple shorts from the ladies section for the 11 year old to try. But the lack of what I would deem is a regular inseam length for shorts… baffles me.
(Also – when do I stop shopping in the girls’ section. What is after that and before Women’s? I do shop in the women’s for the 11 year old once in a while- the XS fits her okay.)
(Also – I bought new water bottles and socks for the kids in anticipation of summer camp because the current supply of both water bottles and socks, is mismatched and grimy. And wow… do the kids never stop needing things to be replaced/replenishes/restocked? Always something.)
Thing of Beauty of the Week: I packed both the little kids in one suitcase. Since we weren’t sure if there would be laundry, I packed seven outfits for each kid. The Husband must have been impressed because he sent me a picture of the suitcase upon arrival:
Yes, I’m a “roller” not a “folder”.
Listening to: The 2022 podcast Sold A Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong, details the story of reading instruction in the U.S. and how one of the predominant methods currently being used is scientifically proven to be flawed yet still is implemented. I learned to read at an early age and took for granted the ability to look at letters on a page and sound them out. The 11 year old was not an early reader, and actually a little behind her peers. I remember when she was in kindergarten thinking, “Wow there are certainly a lot of strategies being taught on how to figure out what a word is.” But it turns out, according to Sold a Story, that a lot of these strategies, mostly revolving around context clues, don’t actually teach a kid to read. In fact, they are what kids rely on when they can’t read. Listening to this podcast was kind of eye-opening to me – it really made the things that bothered me about the 11 year old’s reading journey make sense. The six year old more or less is figuring out on his own how to read, and I am pretty sure it isn’t through context clues. I’m really interested to see how the baby learns, and after listening to this podcast, I feel like I know how I would prefer to support her. This podcast was fascinating.
Also this On Being episode with Vivek Murthy about the need for love and compassion and connection in our world. So many wise thoughts. My favorite quote: “When we come into this world — as I see with my own kids, and many of you may have seen with other young people in your lives — we are content. My kids don’t care whether we have a big house or a small house. They don’t care about how fancy the clothes are that they wear or not. They care about finding moments of joy. They care about the relationships they have with the people around them.” Another thing that stuck with me was how Murthy talks about the pandemic of loneliness – something that was indeed magnified by the pandemic. He offers four suggestions on how individuals can create a world with more connection: 1) spend 15 minutes a day connecting with someone you care about (who doesn’t live with you.) 2) give people your full attention when talking to each other. 3) find opportunities for service as this helps connect you with other people but also with your own values. 4) counterintuitively, find time for solitude because in solitude you can rediscover yourself, and connecting with yourself is important for connecting with other people. I don’t care to put myself on the introvert/extrovert spectrum because I feel like for me, it’s not one or the other, but I do know that I get deep satisfaction from interacting with other people. I’m always hesitant to reach out to other people, but I’m always glad when I do and this podcast episode was a good reminder to reach out more.
Grateful For: – The Husband for taking the kids away. A ten hour road trip with three kids… not for the faint of heart, but he went and he made sure the kids had a great time. They went to the Aquarium, did the architectural boat tour, visited the Bean. Also, he sent me this hilarious text exchange:
“Why Thank you, Husband, for sparing me a trip to the American Girl Store!”
– The Husband’s Garden. Since the Husband wasn’t home, I mowed the lawn and watered the garden. I will fully admit that I am a spectator in the backyard – I don’t have any interest in getting my hands into gardening or landscaping or what not. My interaction with the garden is pretty much limited to cooking the vegetables that he grows. As I was watering the garden, though, I noticed how thoughtful he is about the plants, and all the little projects that he has going on in his garden. I noticed how colourful and pretty everything looked and I felt really grateful that he put in the effort to make our backyard so green. And I’m also really grateful that these little bits of dirt and growth have given him a hobby and so many hours of not thinking about the kids.
– Our dishwasher. Because when you clean out the fridge, it is a good thing to not have to wash all that science experiment encrusted Tupperware by hand.
Looking Forward To: – Camping! And Camp Food! I’ve started brainstorming what we’re going to eat on our camping trip to the Shenandoah Mountains. I’ve bought a new cooler and I’m excited to take it camping. I’ve been listening to camping podcasts to also get me excited about three nights in the woods with two little kids. – A week at home with the six year old. When I realized that this would be a performance week and I would have a lighter work schedule, I decided not to put the six year old in camp and instead he can have Camp Mom – where we go do fun things and go on playdates and spend lots of time outdoors. His sisters will be in school, so we’ll have lots of one on one time, which si something I don’t do enough of. -The Smithsonian Folklife Festival – starts this weekend. It’s always fun to go down to the Mall and see the exhibits and performances. The theme this year is the Ozarks and also the exploration of the where spirituality and creativity intersect. I used to dismiss this as one of those DC things that made the Mall a crowded madhouse and I’d avoid going, but I’ve come to see what a neat collection of experiences it is. If I ever have the summer free, I would seriously think about volunteering for the Festival.
What I Ate: Saturday: The leftover Cucumber and Black Bean Salad from last week.
Sunday: I didn’t plan my work day and meals well and as a result did not pack a dinner and was starving by the time I got home from work at 8:30pm. I ate a can of tuna over some cut up cucumbers with hot sauce. And some more leftovers. Sometimes a can of tuna is just the meal I need.
Monday: Whole Roasted Cauliflower and Mashed Beans from Hetty McKinnon’s To Asia with Love. I’ve always wanted to try a whole roasted cauliflower and being home by myself was the perfect time to do it. The family things cauliflower is bland and make faces whenever I propose it. (And then eat it anyway.) The recipe calls for mixing gochujang and yogurt and spreading that over a cauliflower and then roasting it. The roasting turns the yogurt and gochujang into an almost cheesy like spicy layer coating the cauliflower. It was definitely not bland.
Tuesday and Wednesday: Leftovers. Because when home by myself, it’s okay to eat the same thing three nights in a row. (Maybe it would be okay to do this when everyone else is home too, but I feel like it wouldn’t go over as well. We are so spoiled.)
Thursday: Happy Hour with some mom friends. We went to a favorite Mexican restaurant. I ordered the seafood soup, which I always order at the restaurant. It’s this delicious tomato broth based concoction chock full of seafood and flavour. It is delicious. I had it years ago and even though it is no longer on the menu, they will still make it if you ask. (I feel like such a braggy special snowflake for saying, “I just ask for this off menu thing and they make it.” But that’s really how it goes down.). Anyhow, when I got the bill, I realized that the seafood soup is a $38 item. Which I had never realized before because the Husband usually settles the bill when we go out. And I almost had a heart attack to realize that I’ve been eating $38 soup for years. I mean it is kind of understandable – there is half a lobster in this soup. Plus all sorts of other seafood. I told myself that I don’t drink, so ordering the seafood soup is probably an acceptable indulgence when we go out to eat.
Friday: Opening night – I didn’t really have dinner, but I did have some roast beef sliders and these really complicated looking cucumber appetizers at the opening night party.
The 11 year old had her 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony. The Husband and I both went. Oh my goodness. There might have been some tears. You know, those happy tears of, “Wasn’t she just a little baby? and I can’t believe that she’s made it all the way through elementary school! and She’s growing up and moving forward and I can’t always be there for her!” You know, that kind of stuff. Man, if I’m this blubbering mess at her elementary school promotion ceremony, I can’t imagine what kind of mess I’ll be as she gets older. I can’t believe that I will have at least two more Promotion/Graduation ceremonies to go though for this kid. More, if she finished college. And I’ll also have to go through this with the two other kids.
There were so many nice touches to the ceremony. The Principal reminding the students to “Find your superpower and always always always remember to be kind.” And then reminding them that they will always be a Sea Turtle (the school mascot). (okay – I might be tearing up remembering that bit.) As each student’s name was read out, the teacher also read a quote by the student – things like favorite memories, advice, hopes for the world. Some of my favorites: “The world would be a more awesome place if there were more male teachers.” “My advice for kindergarteners would be to enjoy recess because you don’t have it in middle school.” “I will always remember to dial in”
There were also a lot of kids who mentioned their friends and teachers in their quote. It made me realize that even though learning is important, what really makes an impact are the friendship and human connections that the kids make – the people who make a child feel seen and heard. I feel like the 11 year old was fortunately place in the pandemic timeline – she had three years of in person learning before the pandemic and then she had a year and a half of in person learning afterwards. While the year of virtual learning was certainly disruptive, she could start and end elementary school surrounded by people and not online.
At the end of the ceremony, the school has a “clap out” where all the other grades line the hallways and the 5th graders walk by every classroom and high five all the other students. And it ended with cake. Then lots of pictures and good-byes and some phone numbers exchanged for future playdates.
That was the big event for the week.
One last picture by her locker.
Last Day of School!
Comparison: First Day of School!
Well, actually only one kid went to school on the Last Day of School. The 11 year old stayed home – the principal said that no one expected fifth graders to show up on the last half day. And the 3 year old had the day off for teachers in service. She actually is quite confused as to why she still has to go to school/ daycare this summer while her siblings don’t. The six year old went to his last day of kindergarten. Whew. We made it.
Other fun things:
This snapshot of life moment: The two younger kids were playing together, while I wrapped a few things up before I took them to a pool. Then I hear the 6 year old say to the 3 year old , “You need a stick! Go get a stick!” And the three year old runs into the kitchen and grabs a chopstick. Now whenever my kids grab sticks, some spidey sense tells me to be a little wary. “What do you need a stick for?” I asked. “To wave it!” I follow them to the living room, and this is what I saw:
The three year old “conducting” while the six year old “plays”. It delighted me to my music loving heart!
For Better of For Worse:
I found this battered copy of a For Better or For Worse volume in a Little Free Library and immediately snatched it up. I grew up reading Lynn Johnston’s comic strip For Better or For Worse in my local newspaper. The family structure was very similar to my own – mom, dad, older brother, younger sister. And the younger sister was about my age as the strip progressed. I always found it so relatable – just an ordinary family and the gentle ironies of life. Johnston has such a gift for seeing the humour in the mundane. There are certain strips that have always stuck in my head. The one where the mother responds to the father’s complaint of the kids dog-earing books, by saying, “At last they are reading!” has always stayed with me.
The 11 year old has also been reading this slim volume and one day she showed me the page where pre-teen Elizabeth is in a prickly foul mood, slamming doors and growling at her parents, but then at the end of the day asks her mom for a hug. “Sometimes,” the 11 year old says to me, “That’s how I feel.” I just wanted to give her all the hugs.
This yummy breakfast: One day the kids wanted oatmeal for breakfast, which isn’t something we have a lot in the summer. They had frozen blueberries and maple syrup on theirs. I wanted a savory version, so I had eggs, ume plum vinegar, sesame oil, cilantro, and chili bamboo shoots on mine. Kind of like congee. I love chili bamboo shoots; I could eat them right out of the jar. But it’s one of those foods that I always forget that I like so I don’t have it too often. On the side, mango with tajin.
Lychees – I went to HMart for groceries the other day, and when I came home I realized that I have three versions of lychees:
There is my favorite Japanese gummy candy, then canned lychee because there is a lychee ice cream recipe that I want to try to make, and then fresh lychee, which we very rarely get, so I always buy some if I see them and they look good. I guess lychees are my favorite fruit! They are so sweet and juicy and have a nice chew to them that it’s just a really perfect eating experience for me. I’m sure the rarity makes them even more special too. They actually had lychees at Costco last week, but those aren’t as sweet at the ones from HMart.
Grateful for: – My health. I’ve met a lot of people these past few weeks who are dealing with chronic health conditions, and I’ve been feeling really grateful that thanks mainly to genetics and good luck, I’ve always felt very good in my body. It’s also made me realize that medicine is not an exact science – my friends have gone through a battery of tests and visited many doctors and basically get a diagnosis of “Yup, you feel tired/have migraines/inexplicably vomit…” How mentally exhausting that must be, on top of not feeling physically well! I don’t want to come across a smug, but I’m realizing that I can’t take my ability to function without pain or discomfort for granted, especially as I get older. Health issues can be so mysterious and I could very well develop a chronic issue at anytime, so I’m grateful for every day that I’m healthy.
– The 11 year old’s elementary school and especially the staff and teacher. I had so many doubts about having the 11 year old switch schools for 5th grade. Clearly the partial Immersion program that she was in was not serving her well, but was a new school really the answer? What if she didn’t like the school? What if the kids at the new school were just as mean as the kids at the old school? Is it too big of an adjustment to make for the last year of elementary school? But it was absolutely the right decision, and honestly, one that we should have made sooner. The principal runs the school with the authoritative air of a benevolent ruler – a firm and kind man. The office staff is always happy to see people come in; they never act as if you’re being a bother. And the teachers all want to help kids learn and do well. This is our fourth elementary school experience and I’ll say that I didn’t find these things everywhere. The 11 year old found her spot and friends and one fun thing at the promotion ceremony was meeting all the people whom she connected with over the school year.
-The nice weather and the air clearing up. Luckily we only had about two days of really bad air here in the DC area, but then things were back to normal. With this week being tech week, I’m in the theatre at lot, and I haven’t been getting out to run. But I’m grateful that when I do get breaks, there is balmy weather- not quite grossly humid – and sunshine and shade and lush summer green for me to enjoy.
The trail near my house.
Looking Forward To: So the Husband has taken all three kids on trip. I’ve had to stay home because I’m working this week. It seems so luxurious to have the whole house to myself. These are things I’m looking forward to – Reading! I went to the library last week on my day off and got a whole stack of books. I’m inspired by Coco who has been spending hours reading in the morning while her family is away!
library stack
– Cooking! I am going to cook and eat all the things that I don’t often get to cook when the family is at home – cauliflower, bok choy, fried rice, lots of vegetables. Tempeh. This is a big one. I’ve had tempeh in the fridge for longer than I care to admit, but no one likes tempeh. That’s not true, quite – no one likes the idea of tempeh, so I never make it. (They’re fine when I do finally make it but sometimes it’s not worth listening to the grousing). Also all the things that I want to eat, but the kids eat before I get to it. Like lychees.
Library cookbook stack
– Cleaning out the guest room. This is my big “To Do” item while home by myself. We have family coming to visit in July and currently the guest room is clothes storage. I need to organize and put the clothes in bins and then put the clothes in the attic.
-Blog – finish my Amsterdam recaps.
-And then also all the other life admin stuff – camp forms, pay the bills, etc. I know this doesn’t really go on a “Looking forward to” list… but I’m looking forward to doing it without having a kid come up and interrupt me.
What We Ate – I still feel like every night I’ve had some variation of this conversation with the Husband: Him: What can I make for dinner? Me: Well there’s x, y, and z in the fridge. Him: What can I do with that? Me: … spits ball some complicated ideas. Him: We’ll just have eggs.
In truth, he’s doing a great job of keeping the kids fed as I work into the evening. But I look forward to being able to meal plan again some day:
Saturday: Pizza and movie night – School of Rock.
Sunday: Camp food with friends. Our friends had bought a new camp stove and wanted to try it out, so we went on a hike and then they made dinner at the end. Rice and Beans with Sausage and vegetables – they had dehydrated okra and tomatoes and added that. It was really tasty. There was mac and cheese and broccoli rice for the kids.
Monday: Pork chops with gravy and green beans. The Husband cooked. This is the kind of Midwestern meal he makes without a receipe.
Tuesday: Zucchini Boats – the Husband cooked. We seem to eat these a lot, but it’s a good way to get vegetables into the kids.
Wednesday: Breakfast sandwiches.
Thursday: Turkey Chili – I made before heading off to work. This was one of those really satisfying meals to make in that I got to use up lots of leftovers and clean out the fridge a little. I used the leftover zucchini boat filling (ground turkey) and tossed it in in Instant Pot with leftover turkey burgers, a can of crushed tomatoes, celery, carrots, onions, corn, black beans and chili powder and cumin. It was really tasty and I had the leftovers in wraps for lunch all week.
Friday: Sandwiches at the Golf Course. The Summer music series has started at the local golf course – so many a Fridays we just grab sandwiches from the deli and head there with our lawn chairs and picnic blankets. Even when we don’t plan to go with friends, we almost always run into someone we know.
Saturday: Pizza and movie night. It was my turn to choose and I chose The Queen of Katwe, a 2016 movie based on the true story of a chess prodigy living in the slums of Kampala, Uganda. I’m trying to find more family movies that aren’t animated and I really enjoyed this one. The story is by turns inspirational and dramatic and eye-opening.
Monday: Turkey Chili leftovers
Tuesday: Grilled Tofu and Tomatoes – the husband made this from the Green Barbeque Cookbook, a book of vegan and vegetarian recipes to make on the grill. It was very tasty. Vegan.
Wednesday: Eggs and Green Beans. The Husband cooked.
Thursday: Cucumber and Black Bean Noodle Salad from To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon. This was really tasty and went over pretty well with the kids, though one kid only at the veggies and one kid only ate the noodles. The dressing base is fermented black bean sauce, one of my favorite ingredients. I added green beans and five spice tofu to bulk it up. Vegan.
Friday: Leftovers for me. Not quite sure what the Husband and kids did.
It feels like I’m still struggling through May, but really it’s well into June! The older kids still have a week of school, which feels late to me, but at the same time, I’m thinking, “ALREADY??? Unfettered free time for them?!?!” The 3 year old will go to day care full time, but the older kids are having four weeks of camp and the rest will be trips or time with grandparents or parents. I have finally booked all the camps that we need for the kids, so our child care needs are covered. It’s certainly a relief to have it done, but I am second-guessing myself and wondering if there should be more organized activities. It will be fine. I have to remind myself that done is better than perfect. And really, there is no perfect. Grandparent camp/ camp mom and dad will definitely be on the unstructured side. I’m strangely a little nervous about the lack of plans or routine for the non-camp weeks… I want to fill the summer with joy and fun and good memories, but at the same time that feels like a lot of pressure to have those expectations.
Here, the air has been hazy and we , in an ironic twist, masked to go outdoors for a couple days. I guess I’m glad I stocked up on masks last March, even though the kids weren’t masking in school anymore. I didn’t think much of the reports of poor air quality, but when I woke up Thursday morning, the trees seemed shrouded in a light mist. Of course it wasn’t mist. The air in DC is no where are poor of a quality as those further north, and in Canada – I hope everyone is staying safe; it all sounds really worrisome and stressful.
My May show has closed, and that finishes out the season at that company. I’ll be back in September, though, so I don’t feel too badly about not having time to clean out my desk properly.
One day, when I was doing my pre-show checks, I was struck by how much less time my pre-show checks take by the time I get to performance number four. When we first move to the theatre from the rehearsal room, it can initially take upwards of 45 minutes to talk the crew through setting up the props (presetting the props, we call it), and then for me to double check all the presets. The prop list for this show was quite large and a lot of it is quite specific: candle in the black holder on the stage left prop table, candle in the brass holder onstage, two candle tapers in the wooden box, two inch stack of paper on the crate, one tray with six ashtrays and six candles, one tray with three ashtrays and three candles and two cups, etc., etc., etc. Also – once we get into the theatre I work with a union crew so I can’t just put things where I want it – I have to ask the crew to do it. In the rehearsal hall, the other stage managers and I preset the props ourselves, and it just goes faster when I don’t have to explain the exact angle a box needs to sit at because if it isn’t like that, the singer won’t be able to reach the thing on top of the box that is very important for that bit of stage business. But I am deeply grateful for the crew because sometimes we have very heavy and awkward items in the show and by the time we get to stage, I’m tired of having to move it around myself. So I’m always glad for the crew.
All that to say, the first few days onstage I’m rushing to make sure things get set up at those correct angles, and I feel like the props won’t get set up in time for the start of rehearsal. The prop preset seems huge. Sometimes they aren’t all set when rehearsal starts and I just prioritize – set/check the stuff in the first scene, leave all the stuff in the last scene and check those when we get closer. (This is not the optimal way of going about things.)
But then something happens along the way as we get towards opening night and then through performances – the preset list that was a long and daunting 45 minutes process suddenly becomes manageable and takes only fifteen minutes to check. Often the crew has it done before I come up to stage. I can take one glance at a shelf of trays and tell immediately when something is not right, when a slice of bread or bottle of wine is missing. It’s not that I am become careless in prop checking – though I have been known to miss something (one show, it was a canteen that I had forgotten, and a singer had to improvise with a wine bottle. Then he exited stage with said wine bottle and returned with the canteen. I quipped that he pulled a reverse-Jesus.) I’m not careless – I still methodically check things off the preset list – but certainly by performance #4, what once seemed like a huge task on Day One in the theatre, suddenly seems like a less big task, seems routine and easy. On these big big shows I usually do have a moment when I say to myself, “Just think, this preset used to seem impossibly large, and now it’s … not.” Maybe that’s a metaphor for other things in life… sleep training, weekday mornings, going to the airport after COVID….
Just page one of the prop preset. There is another page and then three pages of diagrams.
Along those lines, in my last recap, I noted that I took an average of 16 000 steps per day during tech. As an exercise, I tallied how many steps I took during a regular performance – it takes in the neighborhood of 3000 steps over the course of four hours to run this particular show. That’s a 13 000 step difference. It got me thinking – that 13 000 step difference is the work it takes to figure out how the show is going to work in the theatre. I think sometimes people think that what we do as Stage Managers is make sure the show happens smoothly every night, but as I was doing the math of the difference in number of steps between a day of tech and a performance call, I realize that a lot of the core of my job is in those 13 000 steps. Being a stage manager is not just the 3000 steps it takes to run the show night after night. Rather it’s the 13 000 steps is the work it took to decide the backstage traffic patterns, to figure out the quick changes and prop presets, to make sure singers had clear instructions on how not to get hit by a piece of scenery, to run out onstage when the conductor or director stopped the rehearsal…. 3000 steps is what the audience sees. 13 000 steps, or roughly 5.5 miles, is what it takes to get there. The distance one travels is decidedly not the destination.
Speaking of distance…. I’ve been back to commuting. I recently read this opinion article: “Office Worker Don’t Hate the Office. They Hate the Commute” and something about it certainly rubbed me the wrong way. That they have to specify “Office Workers” seems to leave out large swaths of the population who don’t have the luxury of choosing to work from home. Similarly, a few weeks ago, I listened to an episode of The Art of Manliness titled The Science of a Better Daily Routine, in which they talked about science based ways to tweak your daily routine, including your commute. The guest mentioned that the optimal commute is 15 minutes and how we should craft our jobs with that in mind. It sort of irked me that he seemed to think tweaking your commute was an easy lifestyle change – like eating vegetables or drinking more water.
Anyhow, commuting has been on my mind recently as it has been taking vast amounts of my time. My current commute takes anywhere from 20 minutes on a Saturday morning to 1h, 5 mins on a weekday at 5pm. On days when it takes 20 minutes, it gives me a certain satisfying sense of flow; between home and work, there is but one traffic light, and that one is around the corner from my house. After that traffic light, I can drive without stopping all the way to work – my favorite is driving with my windows down, singing at the top of my lungs. It’s actually fun … if the traffic is light. If the traffic is not light… well then the commute can be soul sucking. All these people trying to get somewhere in their coffin-like metal pods. Alone, mostly. I find myself very rage-y some days when the traffic is moving particularly slowly. The punishing rays of sun that beat in through my window that I can’t escape from as I crawl along at 15 mph, past accidents and through construction. I am trying to be Zen about commuting, trying to make it an exercise in gratitude. I’m having varying degrees of success with this.
Things that make my commute a little less despairing: – Snacks. Most days I’m commuting home around dinner time, and being hungry certainly does not improve my mood. I used to have granola bars and candy, and chocolate in the car for commuting, but these past few months, in an attempt to eat more vegetables, I’ve started packing crudités and cut up fruit for my commute. I feel like this little switch is a minor win on many levels. In the morning, I have been having my homemade iced chai in my cup holder, and it makes me happy. I tell myself I can’t drink it until I’m in the car, and it gives me something to look forward to. I do need to figure out some kind of portable breakfast because I’m finding that most mornings, I’m not hungry enough to eat breakfast before I get the kids to the school bus and then I’m starving by the time I get to work. Maybe the solution is to just eat at work, but I like to work when I get into work. – Ice cold water. Staying hydrated is important, and ice cold water on a hot day can be divine. I’ve been filling up insulated water bottle with ice in the morning and topping it off before I leave work so that I have cold water for the drive home. I find having a sip of very very cold water helps perk me up a little bit. – Something good to listen to. A good audiobook, an interesting podcast (lately I’ve been listening to Book Friends Forever, What Should I Read Next, and The Puberty Podcast), something good on the radio (This great story from the BBC on how opera companies use singing and breathing techniques to help COVID sufferers.), music. Having something engaging to listen to helps me not be so annoyed at the pace of traffic. I was also thinking that I could use the time to catch up on phone calls, but somehow I never feel like doing that. – Sunglasses. I never saw the point in sunglasses, but a few years ago I got a pair of prescription sunglasses and it was life changing. Really bright sun tends to make me sleepy, which is dangerous when driving. Having sunglasses helps alleviate some of that sun drowsy feeling for me when I don’t have to constantly squint in the morning/ afternoon brightness. – Reminding myself that I’m lucky to be able to commute to a job that I love, and one that requires my presence. In our world of AI advances, I’m glad that I’m not replaceable. (yet. Always yet. I don’t want to underestimate what we will do with technology). I don’t always feel like what I do is important in the larger context of world problems, but I do get a lot of satisfaction in how I function in the microcosm of putting on a show, and the in person interactions and experiences that I get to participate in. So on days when I am crawling through traffic I try to be grateful that someone needs me to show up somewhere.
So some fun things that have happened lately:
-On Memorial Day I had thought to take the kids on a hike with some friends, but it rained that morning, making it a little too muddy for that, so we decided to take the Metro into DC and go to a Museum instead. We decided to go to the Portrait Gallery because it’s right off the Red Line so easy to get to. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best choice of museum for four kids aged 3 to 11. I love that museum – I love seeing all the portraits of people and reading about what they did and how they made their mark. I always am filled with wonder at all the people who did amazing things whom I’ve never even heard about. But… I admit row and rows of portraits is probably not the most engaging for kids. Every time they paused in front of a painting or photograph for more than twenty seconds felt like an achievement. They did spend a whole three minutes in front of this painting, though:
Capture of H.B.M. Frigate Macedonian by U.S. Frigate United States, October 25, 1812 – painting by Thomas Chamber
Something about the energy and movement of the waves and the smoke seemed to capture the kids’ attention. They stood in front of it and talked about canons and shooting and destruction. It felt like a small win.
After the Portrait Gallery we were going to walk to the Natural History Museum, but all the streets were closed down by the Mall. At first I thought it was for the Memorial Day Concert on the Mall, but as we got closer, we realized that there was in fact a Memorial Day Parade. I haven’t seen a parade in ages, and certainly not one with this many marching bands. Of course we stopped to watch. The weather was pretty drizzly by this point, which acutally worked in our favor because the streets weren’t too crowded and we could get a good viewing spot. But all those poor high school students from all over the country, with their polyester uniforms and instruments having to march in the damp weather! I imagine they will always remember this… “Remember that time we got invited to play at the Memorial Day Parade in Washington, DC and it rained and we got soaked as we walked miles and miles down Independence Avenue?” Hard times certainly make for memorable times.
There’s a Parade in Town!
– The 11 year old is graduating from elementary school this year. (OMG.) The PTA got “Proud Graduate Class of 2023” yard signs for all the 5th graders and I walked over one morning to pick one up for our yard. Aside from paying the membership fee and venmo-ing money when staff gifts are being collected, I haven’t been very involved in the PTA. PTAs kind of scare me being the introvert that I am. – I know they are very nice and they do a lot of really great things, but meeting new people and activism has always been hard for me. Plus with kids at two different school I didn’t have it in me to join two separate PTAs. Anyhow, I show up at this person’s house and there are two ladies out front handing out yard sign. They asked the name of my kid and I told them and they said, “Oh my gosh, we love her!” Then they went on about what a good role model she is and how they’ve seen her play basketball, etc. etc. I feel like I spend a lot of time at loggerheads with the 11 year old and to hear other people sing her praises… well it reminded me that she really is a good kid and she tries hard to do the right thing and I need to be less hard on her. I was delighted to hear other people say such good things about her, yet it also made me feel bad that sometimes all our interactions are about things that I want her to do better on, and I should have more interactions that aren’t me naggingly remining her to do things. Definitely one of the things I need to work on.
-I finally opened the bag of Ketchup Chips I brought home from our trip to Montreal last summer. I tend to either abstain from snacks completely or eat the whole package of something. Since I can’t get ketchup chips here in the States, I couldn’t bear to open the one bag I brought home from Montreal knowing that once I opened it, I would devour the whole thing in one sitting. The Husband a few weeks ago, moved the bag of chips to our mantle, with some comment about how they are such a prized possession we should put them on display. Well, one day, after work, I finally decided that it was time to open the bag. Not sure why – something about it being summer and me being home from work early just made it feel like the right time to indulge. I opened the bag, inhaled the tomatoe-y vinergar-y aroma of the chips, then sat in the back yard with a book and my chips and savored every one. It was lovely, and, yes, I’m sad they are now gone.
And afternoon with ketchup chips, working from home Also – as idyllic as this scene seems – we were actually soon driven in by the mosquitoes.
Grateful For: – All the things mentioned above that make commuting not so terrible. But also for technology and Google Maps. Being able to predict when I’ll be home, being able to see before I get on the road if the Capital Beltway is red or green… I remember when I got my first GPS – back before there was one on every smartphone. It was about the size of a baseball and sat on my dashboard. The first model I had couldn’t tell you traffic delays or anything, it just told you how to get from point A to point B. And before that, all I had to get around was a Thomas Guide. I grew up in Southern California and learned how to drive and get around using a Thomas Guide. Crazy to think that my kids will probably never have to look up a street location on a paper map book.
-The 11 year old’s piano teacher. The 11 year old has been on the fence about continuing with piano lessons. She likes being able to play, but does. not. practice. I’ve gone through phases of pleading, ordering, cajoling, bribing, and just ignoring her in my attempts to get her to practice, and it’s exhausting. I was thinking I should just let her quit, but then I was really struck by a list of things adults wish they could have learned (not sure where I saw the list) and the two top things were 1) play and instrument, and 2) speak a foreign language. (I’m glad I can do both, albeit rather imperfectly.) And then I spoke to a friend who has a side gig as a violinist and she said she is really glad her parents didn’t let her quit when she was my kid’s age. So I don’t want to be all, “You’ll stick with piano because I say so,” but I do want to find a way that the 11 year old will stick with it. I talked to her piano teacher and the teacher said that the 11 year old, when she is pushed can play beautifully, and she would be sad if she were to stop. Then the teacher said this to me, “I have students whose parents think piano is important and want their children to play an instrument even if they don’t practice at home, so they essentially pay me to sit and practice piano with them for thirty minutes once a week.” I don’t know that I feel that is the best use of my child’s activity fund, but at the same time, what if consistent lessons will be enough for her to eventually get over the hump of lacking self-motivation? I think one of the hard thing for me as a parent of a tween is not knowing who my child really is, or wondering if who my child really is is right in front of me, but I can’t see it. Anyhow, I’m glad for the long chat I had with her piano teacher – it gave me a lot of perspective. At first I was inclined to just let the eleven year old quit, but she and I talked about it and about how important it was and how much fun she seems to have when she’s just playing around on the piano and we decided that she’ll take a break for the summer and start again in the fall. I’m cautiously optimistic about this.
-A roof. I literally wrote this in my gratitude journal. One night it rained so so hard, and I was lying in bed with the 6 year old and he said, “It’s a good thing we have a roof.” And I thought… yes. I am very grateful for our roof.
Looking Forward To: -I’ve booked our summer camping trip! Three nights car camping in the Shenedoahs. It will be me, the two little kids, and my parents. I’m excited for some time outdoors and I’m starting to research hikes for us to go on. I do need to get a new cooler since there is a crack in our old one.
– A visit from a friend. She’s an old friend from college who will be in the area. I haven’t decided what to do yet – maybe we’ll wander around Annapolis, maybe we’ll go on a hike?
-Being home for pizza and movie night. I’ve worked almost every Friday and Saturday night for the past six weeks, or we’ve had an event that we had to attend, so I’ve missed out on pizza and movie night for a while. I get to pick the movie.
– The 11 year old’s fifth grade graduation ceremony. Can’t believe I will have a middle-schooler!
What We Ate: I admit meal planning has been rubbish lately and the Husband has been making most of the dinners. So here is the very vague rundown of the past three weeks since I last did a menu recap…
Friday: Pizza and movie night (Zootopia). I think they ordered pizza.
Saturday: Dirty Meat – The was the big grilling party that we have for my work colleagues. This guy I work with marinates meat for a week in a combination of herbs and spices and then we gather to grill and eat it. There were over thirty people at our house for this party since it involved both past and present co-workers. It was a really good time. It might have also involved water balloons.
Sunday: Last minute dinner invite to go to a friends’ house. They had accidentally ordered too much food and needed help eating it. Not that we really need an excuse to see these friends.
Monday: Sauteed green beans, eggs, and Tater Tots. I’m not sure what the Husband/freezer that I can cook and call dinner?”
Tuesday: Pasta Salad with the leftover grilled vegetable from the Dirty Meat party.
Wednesday: Not sure at all.
Thursday: Mac and cheese made from scratch. Go Husband!
Friday: Leftover Pasta salad and pizza. I had to work, but the family watched Kung Fun Panda II (I think? Is there a second one? It was the baby’s turn to choose.)
Saturday: Pizza. On two consecutive nights? Not sure what is up with that.
Sunday: Leftovers scrounged from the fridge.
Monday: Burgers (Turkey and Beef), roasted vegetables, and tater tots. Our friends who came with us to the museum stayed on for dinner. I love having friends who you can just pull tater tots out of the freezer and call it dinner.
Tuesday: Broccoli Tofu Stir Fry
Wednesday: Eat down the fridge night.
Thursday: Pasta Salad. This time using my Friend’s Greek Salad recipe as a base. Made in the morning before I went to work.
Friday: Sandwiches and cookies. And easy dinner because the 11 year old had a piano recital we had to get to.
Here we are in June and I haven’t done a book post in a while, so time to catch up. March was a slow month for reading – work was really consuming and I only finished three books. April I had spring break and our trip to get some books in, and also maybe I was just reading easier books? Here’s what’s I’ve been reading the past few months:
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. My father gave me a copy of this book – Yu is a Taiwanese American writer; I’m pretty sure my parents know his parents. Interior Chinatown is a quirky novel that tells the story of actor Wallace Wu who has spent his whole life playing “Generic Asian Man” while he dreams of really playing “Kung Fu Guy”, the pinnacle for an Asian actor. The book sometimes reads like a screenplay, sometimes reads like a fever dream, sometimes reads like a diatribe on the Asian American experience. The struggle to assimilate, the conflicting feelings about wanting to assimilate – a lot of the themes of the book spoke to me on a very personal level. I thought this was a really good book.
Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto, read by Risa Mei – This book is a sequel to Dial A For Aunties, a book I found hugely entertaining. I didn’t love this book as much. Perhaps it was the audiobook experience – the Indonesian accents seemed overdone to the point of caricature and really started to grate on me. Maybe I would have enjoyed reading it better than listening to it. The story itself was amusingly ridiculous, chaotic and madcap.
All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu – This novel tells two parallel/ intersecting stories of two friends growing up in war-torn Uganda and of a woman in the Midwest who befriends one of them after he immigrates to America. It is a beautifully written book that explores the idea of how we make our own identity, especially when one has to leave it behind. Some of the book was a little slippery and hard to grasp for me – I couldn’t really tell which were the separate sides of the revolution that were being fought – and there was some violent parts that I didn’t love.
The Dinner by Herman Koch – I bought this book by Dutch author Herman Koch to read during our trip to Amsterdam. I like reading novels related to my travel destination whenever I can. Koch’s novel unfolds over the course of a very fancy dinner in which two brothers and their spouses meet to talk about a very important issue. This was an expertly crafted and suspenseful thriller, which ultimately left me with an “ick” feeling. It’s pretty much a book about horrible people being really unself-aware, doing horrible or idiotic things. This book also featured on of my least favorite plot devices, which I won’t say because it would be a bit of a spoiler. Despite that I found much to admire in the book – it is very well crafted and the satirical food writing is very on point.
Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jaber – This novel tells the story of Amani, a divorced poet struggling with writer’s block, who accompanies her father to his homeland of Jordan. Her father has been invited to participate in the birthday celebrations of the King, who had once been his fencing partner. I really like this book – I’d never been to Jordon nor, indeed do I know much about it, and this book immediately swept me on a journey to a foreign country, so immersive was Abu-Jaber’s writing. I don’t usually have patience with main characters who are too driftless in the world, but Amani was at least trying to work through the malaise. This book had family secrets, political intrigue, foreign adventures and a touch of romance. I really enjoyed this one.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton – This graphic novel memoir tells about Beaton’s time working in the oil sands of Alberta. This was a grim, uncomfortable read, one that doesn’t shy away from the sexism and casual misogyny and abuse that she faced every day. At the same time, she is able to cling to the kernels of kindness that she finds among her co-workers, and she recognizes that people aren’t bad, rather the oil sands are just in an impossible and toxic environment. I thought the art in this book was beautiful too. This book really stuck with me. (Side note – I thought I was unfamiliar with Beaton’s work, but then in one part of Ducks, she shows herself drawing horses, and I thought the horse looked familiar, and sure enough – it turns out that she had written a pretty awesome book that I had read with my kids – The Princess and The Pony.)
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine – Read this for my “book club” with my 11 year old. She had read it for school and then handed it to me to read. I thought the book was very sweet and funny – a Cinderella story of sorts, this book tells the story of Ella who is cursed to always do as she is told, and her adventures to break this curse. Prince Char seemed a little too perfect for my tastes, but the 11 year old says that’s what fairy tale princes are supposed to be like.
The Golden Hour by Niki Smith – A graphic novel that was also a mom/daughter book club read. The 11 year old had read it and then given it to me, saying she thought it was really good. This is the story of Manuel, a high school student who is trying to find his way after witnessing an act of gun violence. He finds solace in take photographs and eventually in the friendships that he forms at school. The art in this book is stunning and the climax of the book even more so.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, read by Sherman Alexie – I picked this book up because it was mentioned in the Judy Blume “By The Book” column of the New York Times. After I borrowed it, I realized that Alexie had written a hilarious and surprising children’s book Thunder Boy, Jr. that I had read last year. I guess this book is a YA classic and somewhat controversial, partly for it’s frank talk of sexuality. The novel tells the story of native American teenager Junior, who decides to go to a high school off his reservation, angering his best friend. This book is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking and the last few chapters are absolutely gripping and beautiful. I hear there are some illustrations in the book that I didn’t get to see since I read this on audio. The audio version does have lots of bonus content, though, including an interview with Alexie, where he talks about his inspiration and about how much of the book was autobiographical.
Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne – a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice, this is a fun and steamy romance novel set in DC, which made it extra fun for me. I love a good Jane Austen inspired spin off and I really enjoyed this one. In this version, Liza is a DJ trying to fight big corporate property developer Dorsey as he tries to take over her neighborhood. But, as in the original Austen, Dorsey is perhaps not the man Liza thinks he is. I loved trying to track the parallels between the original Austen and this modern day interpretation and especially appreciated the freedoms that the characters have when freed from the constraints of 19th century society. I have always felt frustrated by the lack of agency Austen’s women have and how they are bound by the rules of their time, and this modern day version was really enjoyable for me in that Liza doesn’t have to wait for Dorsey to save her family, but takes charge of things on her own.
The Good People by Hannah Kent – I picked up this book from our AirBnB in Amsterdam. I left my copy of The Dinner behind for the next traveler and took this book with me to read on the plane. This historical novel tells the story of Nora, who loses her husband on the first page of the book. Nora lives in a small Irish village and now must look after her invalid grandson on her own. She hires teenage Mary to help her and then becomes more and more convinced that her grandson is a changeling child. Nora seeks the help of Nance, an elderly healer, to bring her true grandson back, and in doing so runs up against both Church and Law. This book is apparently based on a true story. It is such a bleak book. I was really drawn in by the story and the cast of characters, and I thought the writing was good, but there wasn’t a lot of joy to be found in this account of rural Ireland.
Foster by Claire Keegan – This novella reminds me a lot of one of my favorite songs, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 in that it’s told from the perspective of a child who doesn’t know everything that’s going on, but certainly understands the important things. The narrator, whom I think is nameless, is sent to live with an older couple so that she is out of the way while her mother carries her next child to term. It’s a quiet story, just as love sometimes is.
Picture books that we (I) liked:
Sugar in Milk by Thrity Umrigar – a story about immigration and finding room for everyone.
If You Come to Earth by Sophie Blackall – I love Sophie Blackall’s books – the illustrations are always so lovely. In this book, a young child tells aliens what they can expect to find on our planet.
Green Pants by Kenneth Kraegel- We loved this story about Jameson who will only wear green pants. He is faced with an impossible dilemma when asked to be in his beloved cousin’s wedding because, well, tuxedo pants aren’t green.
In the Neighborhood by Rocio Bonila – In this neighborhood, everyone keeps to themselves. Until one day….
Peace is an Offering Words by Annette LeBox, Pictures by Stephanie Graegin – So I was at the library counter checking out books one day, and behind the counter, I saw the back of this book on a cart to be re-shelved:
Books with Aisian children always catch my eye, so I asked the librarian if I could see the book and then if I could borrow it. The book turned out to not be about Asian kids, but about people in general -the text poetically reminds us of ways we can find and extend peace in the world. This is a lovely, quiet book that the kids asked for repeatedly at bedtime.
On my proverbial night stand:
Index, A History of by Dennis Duncan – There is a whole chapter about page numbers. This is a very nerdy book, full of interesting tidbits about how we read and categorize things.
The Chuckling Fingers by Mabel Seeley- Murder mystery from the 1950s. A little melodramatic.
Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliet Baker – yes, still. There is now scandal involved in the Bronte family and it’s engrossing.
Year of Miracles: Recipes of Love + Grief + Growing Things by Ella Risebridger – a essay book with recipes or a cookbook with essays? Some really eloquent and thoughtful writing here.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett – full cast audio book production. Very funny and on point.
Another show opened. Woot! Some random thoughts from this month so far:
A few of my tech week MVPs: – pre-planning my wardrobe and laying out a week’s worth of clothes on Sunday night. I had done this on my Fall show, but had fallen out of the habit the past two shows. I need to remember to do this more often – not having to spend time thinking about what I’m going to wear every morning makes getting dressed go much faster. For some reason, when I have to decide anew every morning what to wear, it takes more time to choose than when I do it on Sunday night. – Yogurt. I’ve been trying to run or walk on my dinner breaks – I didn’t do as many runs as I usually do, but I did always get outside for at least 30 mins on my dinner break. Of course this meant less time to eat dinner, so I tried to pack things that would be easy and fast to eat. Yogurt was definitely on the “easy and fast” list. I filled a thermos with yogurt, frozen fruit, pecans, chia seeds, and a drizzle of maple syrup. It was a very easy yet filling thing to eat and the thermos kept it cold. At first I felt like yogurt really wasn’t a dinner food, but it actually was pretty filling and got me through the evening rehearsal. – Amazing colleagues, who are so very good at their jobs that even the hard stuff is not so hard. It’s not always easy, but it’s not so hard that I want to quit. -The Husband, as always, who holds down the fort, did the after school pick up, fed the kids, took them to basketball practice, and skating lessons, and read to them, and put them to bed. All on his own.
I snapped this picture onstage one day while we were setting lighting cues. It’s the most snow I’ve seen all year. One rehearsal, I found myself standing underneath the snow bags as the snow was coming down and it was the oddest sensation – of being covered in snowflakes but not cold at all.
The most snow I’ve seen all year. Also… it gets into everything.
The next weeks will be a little busy because I’ll be in performances for one show while prepping/ rehearsing another show in another part of town. It will be a lot of time in the car, and the commute can be terribly slow, but I’ve started a new audiobook that makes me look forward to getting in the car:
I was looking for an audiobook for my commute and found this on the list of finalists for the 2023 Audie Awards. I’ve never read any Terry Pratchett, and people seem to really love his work, so I thought I’d give it a try. It is proving very funny and layered so far.
Other random ordinary life happenings:
It was Spirit Week for the 5th Grader. I feel somewhat guilty that I’m not the best person at keeping up with the various spirit weeks/ teacher appreciation weeks/etc. at school. I’ll see the email come through and then promptly forget. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the teachers or school spirit, it’s just that these weeks with some specific requirement every. single. day. seems light another kettlebell of mental load that I can’t handle, especially during tech week. I’m glad the 11 year old kept track of Spirit week because I knew it would make her happy to participate but I just couldn’t do it for her. Maybe this is growth? I forget about things so that she can develop a sense of responsibility to remember them? One morning was moustache day and I drew a moustache on her with Sharpie. A few days later, she comes to me with a sock on her hand and says, “It’s sock puppet day today.”
No use getting annoyed at the last minute request for sock puppet help, since I wouldn’t have been home in the evening to help anyway. But we did our best and I think it was pretty cute:
Fun fact – that hat is the hat that the 11 year old came home from the hospital wearing. We didn’t realize that we had to bring clothes to the hospital for our new baby so the nurses had to raid the NICU closet for us.
One day I had the morning off, so I volunteered at Field Day at the six year old’s school. I was put in charge of a volleyball station. Though “volleyball” and “put in charge of” are used very loosely here. It was chaotic – 20-40 kids at a time at my station – and there was lots of yelling of instructions. Also – teachers are amazing. Because they have to do it all. the. time.
A new smoothie shop opened around the corner from the Husband’s work place and they have a papaya smoothie that was very delicious. I discovered this little shop the day that I had to take my car in for a new tire. I had imprudently run up the curb in front of our our house one midnight when I got home from a late rehearsal. Because that’s just what I needed at that hour. Anyhow, the next morning, the Husband helped me change the tire. Also.. I went to open my trunk to get the jack and the spare out, and MY JACK WAS MISSING. What the what?!? You have to dig kind of deep to get to my jack, so I’m completely confounded by this. Or maybe I removed it at some point and couldn’t remember? Anyhow it was a completely bizarre mystery. Spare Tire put on and I went to Firestone to get a new tire. The six year old came with me to Firestone (Thank goodness I had warranty on my tires) and on the way back to the Metro to get home, we saw this new smoothie shop had opened. So we ordered smoothies – berry for him, dragon fruit for me. It was so fresh and tasty that I went back later that week and ordered a papaya smoothie. It sort of reminded me of the Papaya Milk drink that I would get from the Taiwanese drink store back in California. I sat in the spring sunshine in the plaza next to the smoothie shop to drink my papaya smoothie and it was such a wonderful quiet few minutes to myself.
Is there anything more lovely than a special cold beverages, sipped outdoors on a spring-almost-summer day?
There was also Mother’s Day in the mix. I did get to sleep in until 9am. Which was good because I had been up super late the night before at the opening night party. I don’t love going to work parties, because I’m just awkward socially and feel very uncool standing there clutching my Coke while people do suave things like chat with ambassadors and drink champagne. But, I did talk to some nice people – friends of a friend – and there was this amazing cheese spread:
And this was only one tiny corner of the cheese table.
Anyhow, the day after was Mother’s Day. I had a show to work in the afternoon so it didn’t feel very special. I don’t love Mother’s Day – again that whole feeling awkward about the attention thing. The one thing I did ask for Mother’s Day – getting a picture with all my kids – did not happen, so I was a little bummed about that. But the other thing I wanted – to eat dinner outside – that did happen. Granted, it was Chipotle because we had promised the 11 year old Chipotle for an excellent report card, but I still got to enjoy the warm evening. And the kids made a sign for me:
Grateful for:
-Wireless headsets. When I was first starting out in this business, there were no wireless headsets in the theatres where I worked. You got a headset and beltpack which was hard wired into a place in the wall so you either ran the show without a headset – which made it difficult to communicate with your stage manager – or you ran the show attached to this wall, with this really long tail or cable everywhere. Now when I started out I was working in small theatres, so having a wired headset was inconvenient but doable. If you were working in a big theatre, I guess you just ran the show without a headset and everyone just had to trust that things would happen and problems would get solved? It seems so inconceivable to me. Anyhow, we now have wireless headsets and we can roam the backstage and keep in touch with the rest of the stage management team, and I think that’s awesome.
-Our back patio. The weather has tipped into that between spring and summer time when there is longer days but the weather is not yet unbearably hot. My favorite time this time of year is the morning or early evening – when the sun is not at it’s zenith and the weather is slightly cooler – perfect for a light sweater, but okay if not. I love having a back patio and being able to sit back there with my tea in the morning, or a seltzer in the evening. Having a space to be able to enjoy the weather and the fresh air, a little table on which to put my beverage, and a chair to relax in and periodically a book to keep me company – that’s a good time right there.
– My car. And the mechanic who keeps it running. I drive a 2003 Subaru Legacy. It’s not the most fancy car these days, and it certainly has its chronic issues, but it gets me from point A to point B. I know its days are numbered, but I will drive it until it is no longer safe to do so. On my free day week, I took it in for an oil change and to have a belt tightened. My conversation to book the appointment with my mechanic went like this (Also note, we used to have three cars, but now only have two): Me: I’d like to bring my car in for an oil change. Mechanic: Yes of course. What is your phone number? Me: [I tell him] Mechanic: Oh yes. Which car of your fleet are you bringing in? Me: The Subaru Legacy. Mechanic: Oh Yes. The old one.
That made me laugh… I drive “the old one.”
But even still, it’s getting me from point A to point B. And these weeks when I’m working two jobs, I am doing a lot of getting from A to B.
Looking Forward To: – Grilling with friends and colleagues. One of our traditions at work is to gather for a cookout once in a while and this year will be the first cook out since 2019. There are thirty+ people about to descend on the house. I’ve never hosted that many people before and honestly our yard is not that big. Also… I just realized that this will be more people than were at our wedding. Anyhow I’m hoping it will be pretty low key – grill, chairs, tables, people bring sides/apps/ beer, and we just hang out for an afternoon. Effortless. Easy. Plus, since a good number of them are stage managers, clean up is usually done before I can blink twice and accept the help.
– Summer. I have work booked until mid August this year, so I’ll have to be very purposeful to get some of our usual summer adventures in. It’s a balance, though… since we work six days a week, if I pack the day off with too many adventures, I might not have time to recharge and do the life maintenance things that I need to. But I am looking forward to the pool and outdoor music and hikes and camping and getting on my bike.
-I started watching The Gilded Age, a period drama that came out last year. It is by Julian Fellowes who wrote Downton Abbey and the cast is divine. It features some huge theatrical talents who, from what I understand, were all available for a mini series since COVID had shut down the theatres. I’m only one episode in, but it is proving that same blend of detailed and juicy yet proper that I loved about Downton Abbey. This is my new “while I wash the dishes” incentive.
– Working with a colleague whom I have known for over twenty years, but whom I haven’t seen since 2011. One thing about my work is many people come in and out of my life. Many of the colleagues from the early days when I was just starting out in opera are the most dear to me. We all started out as baby opera makers with big dreams and there is something really bonding about being in that stage of one’s career together. Some of these people are no longer in the industry, some of these people run their own opera companies now – funny the directions life takes you. Whenever we part ways at the end of a gig, I never say good-bye – it’s always, “See you later!” because I believe that our paths will cross again. When we finally do get to work together again, there is a sense of familiarity and growth that brings me so much joy and wonder.
What We Ate: It’s been a few weeks, but the Husband made all the dinners while I was in tech, so not quite so a very vague list…
Monday: Tortilla Soup. This recipe from the Two Sleevers website. Made a couple weeks ago and froze the leftovers. Present Me thanks Past Me for this foresight.
Tuesday: Eggplant Pasta. Vegan. Sautee eggplant with onions in InstantPot, add tomato sauce and pasta on top and cook on high pressure for 15 minutes. I made this to use up an eggplant we had in the fridge. The family was not a fan, but I thought it was perfectly fine. Vegan.
Wednesday: Eggs and leftovers.
Thursday: Take out Sandwiches. Again. This was the night we tried to go to an event at the local park where they had food trucks and live music. The place was swamped and the food trucks couldn’t keep up with the volume of people. Plus it was expensive. I think we paid $20 for 3 plain hotdogs. So we abandoned the park, went to our friends’ house, ordered sandwiches from our favorite deli and ate in the backyard while the kids bounced on their trampoline. I’d say it turned out to be a very nice evening.
Friday: Chana Masala in the Instant Pot. This recipe from the blog Feasting at Home. I thought this was really tasty and I ate it in wraps for lunch for the rest of the week. The family was lukewarm. It might have been because I forgot to turn the IP into “keep warm” and the food was cold by the time they got home.
Saturday: I had leftovers while at work. The family had pizza and movie night. I’m not sure what they watched.
Sunday: Dumplings and leftovers. I was at work and had yogurt for dinner.
Monday: all I have scribbled in my journal is “pasta”…. I think that means the Husband made tortellini and red sauce.
Tuesday: Wings. The Husband ordered wings from one of our favorite places. (Me: leftovers/yogurt at work)
Wednesday: Eggs and Toast. (Me: leftovers at work)
This day featured one of the things I was most looking forward to- a food tour!
We opted for the Hungry Birds food tours, based on recommendations on the internet. I like going on guided tours, and I thought that a tour where we got to eat periodically might be a good one for the kids.
The tour wasn’t until noon, so after breakfast (coldcuts, cheese, bread and leftover noodles) we decided to first walk down to the floating flower market. Along the way we passed this fun sculpture on the side of a building:
And more buildings with detailed architectural features, like these statues on the side of this building:
And these rows and rows of shutters:
On our canal tour, the guide said that the City of Amsterdam is asking people who have these shutters to put them back on their houses for the more historic look.
This alley of plants:
The floating market itself was quite crowded. The stalls in the market are on boats floating on the canal, though I didn’t realize that until I took a step back too look at them; when walking through the market, the stores just look like open stalls lining the street. We didn’t linger, but it made for a nice stroll to see the colourful flowers and bins of bulbs.
These are actually wooden tulips.
That was kind of the extent of the tulips that we saw. Everyone seems to be shocked that we didn’t go see the tulip fields, even though we were in Amsterdam at the start of tulip season. The fields are outside of Amsterdam and by all accounts very crowded. I don’t love going to super crowded places – I always feel like I can’t get a good view of the attractions, and that the lines move too slowly to be enjoyable while at the same time the crowds push one along so one can’t savor things at one’s own pace. Perhaps if we return to the Netherlands during tulip season, I might book a tour to see the tulips – something a little more controlled.
After we wandered through the floating flower market, we headed to the meeting spot for our food tour. The food tour was in the Pijp district of town, and area that has a more urban vibe than the flower market’s historic canals and leaning houses. When out tour guides arrived, they brought the first tasty bite of the food tour: cookies from Van Stepele.
The story behind these viral cookies is that the person who started the bakery wanted to create one perfect cookie, so people wouldn’t have to choose. The guide said the line is usually around the block for the cookies but since there is only one cookie, it moves really fast.
Next stop: Surinamese sandwiches and fried plantains from Tjin’s. This part of the food tour delved into the history of the Dutch and the different cultural influences to be found in Amsterdam. I wasn’t familiar with Suriname at all, save for a reference to it in the musical Candide. (It’s a little shameful how much of my knowledge of history comes primarily from opera and musicals.) Suriname is a small country in South America which was colonized by, among other nations, the Dutch. Slaves from Africa and Asia were brought there and it has a wide mix of cultural influences. When Suriname gained it independence from the Dutch in the 1970s, many Surinamese people came to the Netherlands to maintain their Dutch citizenship. The sandwiches we had from Tjin’s Toko were spicy and flavorful – they featured a curried mash of potatoes and chicken on a bun with some home made hot sauce. We also had some fried plantains on the side.
The next stop was a FEBO automat. I’d never been to an automat before and at first I was a little dubious at the idea of a hot vending machine. The croquettes , however, turned out to be crunchy and tasty. I can absolutely see how they come to be a late night hot spot. The kids had fun putting the coins in an opening the door to retrieve their food.
Soooo many choices!
After the automat came my favorite spot of the tour: herring! We stopped at a fish stand and had a very classic Dutch snack- brined herring – along with some fried cod. The options for herring was to have it cut up into little pieces, or to have it all in one piece which you would eat by holding it over your mouth by the tail. Of course we opted for the “hold the fish by the tail” option.
Classic serving with pickles and diced onions.
Here comes the fish….
His look is skeptical, but he ended up loving it.
Baby loves fish!
I don’t seem to have pictures of the Husband with the herring, but he did also eat it, though he said he preferred the fried cod.
Continuing on, we had cookies and coffee from Brood, a bakery with a mission to bring their stores worldwide, particularly to developing nations, as a way to contribute jobs and money to their economies. Then we wandered through Sarphatipark, an expanse of green space in De Pijp area. This would become one of the kids’ favorite places in Amsterdam because they had this really cool adventure playground, with a zipline and more challenging play structures.
After the park, we wandered through Albert Cuyp Market, an outdoor market that started as an informal collection of vendors and carts selling their wares, but which soon became so popular and chaotic that in 1905, the city government made it an official market. They have all sorts of vendors; when we walked through, in addition to vegetables and fish and cheese and snacks, I saw booths selling clothing, fabric, and various house hold items.
The food tour wandered the market, and stopped at a couple stalls of classic Dutch treats. First Stop, Poffertijes, the little Dutch pancakes. We really enjoyed watching this machine squirt batter into the hot molds and then seeing the man at the counter flip the poffertijes over at lightning speed. The pancakes are then put on a plate, layered with butter and a sprinkled with powdered sugar. They were very tasty and mostly a vehicle for melted butter.
The silver machine squeezes batter into the heated molds and then the guy flips them when it is time.
Serious search for butter.
Dutch Licorice, which comes in all sorts of flavors and shapes, including some shapes not suitable for children. I liked the salty licorice the best, but there was a peanut butter one that I also really enjoyed.
Just a small smattering of the licorice that was available at this stall.
Stroopwafel, that combination of cookie and caramel. This stall – Rudi’s – claims to use the “original” stroopwaffel recipe. Their stroopwaffels were delicate and gooey, very different from the store bought variation. The other claim to fame is that this stall is run by Benedict Cumberbatch.
Moonlighting, in case the acting thing doesn’t work out.
All the ooey goodness!
Our final stop was at a brown cafe, one of the casual cozy bars where people in Amsterdam go to have a drink, grab a bit of simple food, catch up with friends, and just hang out and wile away the time. The brown cafe we went to on our tour has been around since 1877, with the building being even older than that.
How cozy does that look!
Our tour group huddled together at the bar and at a table near the bar and we chatted about what foods we liked and what we wanted to try again. The kids had Cokes, I had a mint tea, and the Husband had a koopstoje, which involved drinking an practically overflowing glass of Dutch juniper gin, with one’s hands behind one’s back, and then chasing it down with a beer.
Drinking like the Dutch!
Even though the tour was supposed to end at 4pm, we were at the bar chatting until 4:30pm. Afterwards, our guide walked us back to the Albert Cuyp market, since that was an easy landmark and we all went our separate ways. The kids wanted to go back to the playground at the Sarphatipark, so we headed there, though the 3 year old fell asleep on the way and we had to carry her for a bit. I settled onto a bench with her asleep on me while the two older kids plyaed at the playground. We had promised them ice cream, but they were so busy playing, that we ended up skipping that.
Zipline!
I love this playground so much!
Baby was tired and missed the playground. Sad Panda.
For dinner we decided to get dinner at an Indonesian place that the food tour organizers had recommended. One of the things I really wanted to try while in Amsterdam was a rice table, or rijstaffel, which is a meal with many small dishes served with rice. We ordered both the regular and the vegetarian rijstaffel and were presented with many tiny dishes of a wide variety of food. There was chicken in coconut sauce, chicken in peanut sauce, tempeh in coconut sauce and tofu in peanut sauce, green beans cooked in coconut milk, stews, salads, fried rice… I’m sure there was even more. It was so much fun to try all the different varieties of flavors.
Also, I was really tickled by these vats of chili sauce in the back of the restaurants. Imagine going through that much chili sauce!
so much spiciness!
Once we were done dinner, we took the tram back to our Airbnb and had some tv time (for the kids) and reading time (for the grown ups) until we went to bed around 9pm, though the kids didn’t really sleep until closer to 10pm.
What a fun day it was. The kids loved the food tour and the day was relatively meltdown free until dinner then there was some whining and general tiredness. Step count for the day: 17, 634/ 6.6 miles. And I only had to carry the three year old for less than a mile of it!
I did a big Costco run last week. Tech week is coming up and I felt like I had to stock up on snacks. Some new finds:
snacks!!!
I like a spicy snack, and these two treats are opposite end of spicy. The almonds are spicy/ savory – perfect for when I’m tired of the sweet MLK. They are salty, smoky and crunchy with a little bit of heat. The Tamarind bites had intrigued me for a while and I finally decided to try them. I like tamarind a lot and I’ve always like chili spiced dried mango, so I figured these might be similar. These have that distinctive sweet/sour tamarind flavor with a nice kick from the chili. Not for eating by the handful, but I find one or two at a time very satisfying.
I got these strawberry yogurt bites more for the kids:
The kids really like yogurt tubes, but I can’t keep those in the car, so I thought this might be a nice alternative. They are sort of like yogurt covered raisins but with strawberry instead. The jury is out. They are a nice snack, but not very filling.
These protein bars:
I go back and forth on protein bars. I like the idea of them, but are they really better than just having a Snickers? I grabbed these because a guy standing next to me in the aisle said that it’s the only protein bar his gluten free son will eat. I’m very easily swayed by random strangers recommending things to me in store aisles. Anyhow, these are fine. They are a little larger than I expected, so feel like a lot. They taste okay to me and the ingredient list is not unexpected. Overwhelming endorsement, I know. I probably wouldn’t buy them again because they are on the pricy side, but if I need a gluten free bar, this isn’t a terrible option.
Other fun things:
Sometimes my kids take my camera and take really inane and unflattering pictures. Sometimes, though, they capture things like this:
Ignore me in the background blissfully unaware that my phone is gone. Look instead at the unbridled joy that the 6 year old captured.
That picture is going in my file of “Things to look at when I feel down.”
We also had Take Your Child To Work Day. The Husband took the kids to his office, where they had all sorts of fun activities – a Fire Truck, build a solar car, pizza lunch! Then he brought the kids to my work, where we had some late afternoon activities – build a prop flower, listen to some singers sing, tour the building, try on costumes. I was a little disappointed that the kids couldn’t come to rehearsal, but we have a no guest policy right now because of COVID. All the same, it was fun to see the kids at work briefly.
Trying on costumes.
Very satisfying: I labelled the prop tables. There are a lot of props in my current show. The situation on the prop table had gotten quite chaotic – they had become some kind of random dump area. So one afternoon I just took the time and organized them and labelled spots for all the props. I do usually do this at some point in the process, but usually when there aren’t so many props it doesn’t feel as urgent. Or as satisfying when it is done. Opera aficionados can probably guess what opera this is:
Sort of annoying: The 3.5 year old got sent home with pink eye one day. The Husband went to pick her up and took her to the pediatrician and got drops then stayed home with her. I’m glad that he has a job that allows him to do that. I mean certainly if I had an emergency, I could have taken the afternoon off, but the Husband officially gets to take time off work. Benefits and all that.
Anyhow, we got drops for her, which she refused to let us put in:
“I don’t wanna!”
It took a bit of bribery and holding her down to maybe get a drop in her eyes twice a day. And really, after the first day, bribery didn’t work.
Domestic Adventures: I made muffins in anticipation of tech. This time I made Coconut Peanut Mochi Muffins from Hetty McKinnon’s To Asia with Love. The muffins use sweet rice flour so they are gluten free, and they came out chewy like mochi but dense like a muffin. The swirl of peanut butter helps give it a substantial taste so that the muffin doesn’t tip into desert territory. I really liked these muffins and will definitely make them again. The kids didn’t love them, but the Husband did. The kids said it would be better with chocolate chips. Of course.
Coconut peanut mochi muffins.
I did some mending. My favorite yellow linen pants had a hole in them from last fall when I accidentally poked them with my pencil. I decided to patch them and then saw that there was an even bigger hole on the left knee, so I patched that too. I find mending very satisfying. I do worry, though, that it might be considered not really acceptable to wear patched clothes at work. I patch my kids clothes all the time, but maybe the standard of appearance is different from kids vs. working professionals? Anyhow, I figured one of the benefits of working in the arts is that wearing patched clothes is probably okay since our dress code tends to be more relaxed and whimsy is not frowned upon. So I’ve been wearing them to work. Thank goodness because I really only have two or three pairs of pants right now.
We did a big purge of the kids’ toy room. The toys were getting overwhelming and the room was constantly messy. So we sat down and had the kids choose their five favorite toys/ sets and everything else got put into purgatory in the attic. This is what we were left with: – Doll House and Castle -Barbie house and accessories (This is a lot and I’m thinking that may need to be whittled down even more.) -Magnaformers -Blocks -Train Tracks -Matchbox cars and Hot Wheels garage (One cookie tin full.) -Trucks (we led the six year old keep six trucks) – Nugget and Fort play cushions – Kitchen and accessories – Baby Dolls and Toy Shopping Cart – stuffies. Each kid got to keep five – dress up clothes -Swedish Climbing Ladder (This is bolted to the wall so had to stay, but the kids do legitimately play on it.) -Things that the kids didn’t specifically say to keep, but which don’t take up a lot of room so we kept: The Speak n spell, Learn to Code Robot
Things that got sent to purgatory: Crazy Fort fort kit (which took up one big box – the kids really loved playing with this set during the pandemic, but they don’t build forts as much anymore), lots of trucks, all the craft kits, Transformers (surprisingly), stuffies not chosen.
What is left still feels like a lot. I guess since our kids are so far apart in age, there is going to be a wide range of toys. But we did put two big movie boxes of toys into the attic and just threw out a lot of the small or broken toys. (The 11 year old, who is a school bus patrol, apparently has been taking some of the small unmemorable figurines with her to the school bus and handing them out to younger kids as a reward for good behavior. I’m actually quite tickled that she is doing that. ) I think the ultimate goal is to whittle the toys down so they can go into another room, which will free up the toy room so that the 11 year old can have her own room. I think room sharing gets old once one is in the double digits. The toy room feels like a constant battle. I would love for it to be Pinterest organized and labelled, but the reality is if they can shove their toys easily to the side so that the cleaners can do the floors, I think I can begrudgingly live with that. So at least having fewer toys to shove into the perimeters will hopefully make said shoving go faster.
Something that made me smile: the six year old is starting to read, much to my surprise. during the Pandemic, I thought I might teach him using the How To Taech Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons, but it didn’t take. And then he got into a French Immersion program and we were told not to actively teach our kids to read because it sometimes confuses them as they are learning go read in French. So I just decided to let it go. We still read to him, but I didn’t try to ask him to sound out words or identify letters. Well the other day, I was driving him home and I heard … “ssssss- t- o…..p. Stop.” “can you read?” i asked him. “yeah.” “Who taught you?” “my brain.”
Grateful for: – My Yeti Rambler with Hotshot lid. I had originally got this cup to keep my tea hot, but this week I also had the realization that it could also keep my drinks cold. Not sure why it took me so long to figure this out. Anyhow, it was perfect for making iced chai in the morning and sipping it all day long. One morning I even treated myself to a chai at my favorite coffee place near work and they put it in my Yeti and it was a nice pick me up all day long. – Nice weather and longer hours of daylight. It had been raining all week which made the days kind of dreary. I had a happy hour scheduled with my mom’s group, and I thought it was going to have to be inside, but then the weather cleared up the afternoon of our happy hour. So we sat outside. And because we schedule our get togethers after bedtime, it was nice that the sun didn’t set until after 8pm so we still had some sunlight when we finally met up. – This gratitude entry in my journal made me laugh: “Grateful for not moving the bar” There is a bar in our show. (As in there is a scene that takes place in a restaurant.) Of course we can’t have the real bar in the rehearsal room because it is part of the set. So have a substitute bar in rehearsal that is heavy as f*ck. Like it takes five people and six dollies to move it. We’ve been rehearsing in two rehearsal rooms so we had to move the bar one day from one room to the other, and it wasn’t fun. And then we thought we would have to move back to the first room again. But then the stage manager thought through the schedule and decided that we wouldn’t have to move it again, perhaps ever. So grateful.
Looking forward to: -Tech week. Moving into the theatre! Prepping tech week food! I genuinely look forward to making sure I have food to get me though tech week. The week is long and stressful (I mean relatively – there are for sure more stressful jobs.), so I like to make sure I have food and snacks to get me through. In addition to the Costco snacks and mochi muffins, I’ll make a big batch of boiled eggs and bake muffins for a quick breakfast and have soup or curry that I can bring in a thermos for dinner. – Meeting up with friends one evening at a park for food trucks and live music. It is starting to be live outdoor music season here, one of my favorite summer activities. I don’t know how many we’ll get to with my heavy work schedule this summer, but I’m trying to bookmark all my favorite events so I remember when they are happening. (we did this. It was kind of a bust – the park was over crowded and there weren’t enough food trucks for everyone and the food and beer wasn’t that good and it was expensive. So webagged it and picked up sandwiches and went over to our friends’ house) – Summer camp. This is still on the list because I still haven’t done it and I think if I make myself look forward to it being done, I will get it done. I thought I had an idea of what to do, but then the one camp I was thinking of only does ages 8-12, and I need something that both the 6 year old and 11 year old can do together. There are many advantages to having kids 5 years apart, but finding activities that both can do together is not one of them.
What we Ate: Monday: Leftover Potatoe Leek Soup from the week before. Leftover soup has become one of our go to quick meal strategies.
Tuesday: Breakfast Sandwiches, made by the 11 year old.
Wednesday: Pasta and Meatballs in the Instant Pot.
Thursday: Sandwiches from Santucci’s, eaten in the park. Our first weekday park picnic of the season. Such an easy summer evening activity.
Friday: The Husband made stuffed zucchini. I ate leftovers at work.
Saturday: Happy Hour out with my mom’s group. I had mussels and asparagus. Meanwhile back at home, the Husband made pizza and the family watched the second Boss Baby movie. (The kids had watched the first movie on the plane to/from Amsterdam. Yes, they watched it twice.)
Sunday: Mac and cheese from the blue box and salad. Made my the 11 year old. I just realized – she made dinner twice this week. That feels kind of cool.
