Diane

Books Read in October 2021

Much delayed post, but there were a lot of books read in October. I think quitting Facebook has really helped me boost my time spent reading:

The Riches of this Land: The Untold True Story of America’s Middle Class by Jim Tankersley – I heard Tankersley interviewed on Fresh Air and immediately wanted to read his book. He was the first male journalist I heard talk seriously about the child care crisis in this country, particularly during the pandemic. Most of the time when you hear people talking about the childcare crisis in this country, it’s a woman. Moreover, when male journalists talk about the childcare crisis I find they often treat it like a minor problem among a sea of problems, but Tankersley fully acknowledged that the lack of affordable childcare in this country penalized women in way that it did not penalize men. Tankersley’s book is his exploration into how the idea of “middle class” in America has shifted through the years. What once a concept of, if not affluence, but at least of ease, is not longer that, particularly for women and underrepresented populations. Ultimately, he argues, we (particularly white men, he points out baldly) in this country need to recognize that there is enough to go around, and we have to work together to create policies that benefit everyone, not just those in the top income brackets. I thought it a very good read. He also had the sweetest most eloquent tribute to his dog in the acknowledgements; I seriously teared up reading it.

The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton, read by Kevin R. Free – Hinton spent thirty years on Death Row for two murders that he didn’t commit. Eventually Bryan Stevenson at the Equal Justice Initiative helps him win his freedom. I don’t think that’s a spoiler… the story of how Hinton finally got released is nail-bitingly suspenseful. Hinton’s memoir is an incredible story of hope and resilience in the face of a criminal justice system, and indeed a society, that is incredibly flawed and rank with prejudice. The book has surprising flashes of laughter as Hinton always seems to be able to find his faith and sense of humour even after going to some pretty dark places. This book made me angry in a lot of ways, but it also made me think about how we live both as individuals and as a larger society.

Hungry Monkey: A Food Loving Father’s Quest to Raise and Adventurous Eater by Matthew Amster-Burton – Amster-Burton is a food critic and writer and in this memoir/ recipe book details his efforts to feed his daughter Iris from first foods to pre-school snacks. There is something about this genre of dad memoir that feels to me a little disingenuous with its breezy, befuddled-dad tone and Gen X bourgeoisie – though, I fully admit that there are aspects of the latter that I embrace myself. But anyhow, the recipes and food ideas were actually pretty good and I’ve written some of them down to try.

My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki, read by Anna Fields – I had read about Ozeki’s latest book and when it proved unavailable on Libby, I picked up this earlier book of hers instead. The novel follows two parallel stories of Jane a tv producer who is working on a Japanese television series on meat in the American household, and of Akiko a bulimic Japanese housewife who watches the show. The book is billed as a satirical look at the television and meat industries, and though I didn’t find it particularly humorous, I liked the way Ozeki tackled the idea of dismantling and institution from within. Content warning – it does feature domestic abuse, and that’s not something I generally like reading about, particularly in an audiobook.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner -(4h 46m) In her memoir, Zauner, who is half Korean half Caucasian, writes about her attempts to connect with her Korean roots and deal with losing her mother to cancer. There is an H Mart up the road from me and I love wandering the aisles and seeing all the familiar food and kitchen stuffs from my childhood, and also all the different ingredients from other countries. The book is about so much more than just food, but Zauner describes Korean food so beautifully that I could practically taste it as I read. My favorite passage: “Sobbing near the dry goods, asking myself, Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left o call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?” I have never cried in H Mart, but I definitely have felt that sense of being lost in a store full of familiar things.

Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke -(4h 39m) The Husband picked up this book from the library, and I started reading the first chapter because I was intrigued by what kind of book a famous Hollywood actor could write and if it could be any good. And it was. Very good. Hawke’s novel follows the main character, a somewhat dissolute Hollywood actor, going through a very public divorce while making his Broadway debut and trying to be a good father and a good son. I loved all the details of theatre life – so familiar but from such a different perspective from my own. The Hawke’s writing manages to feel really focused even when his character isn’t, allowing the readers to really understand the character before he understands himself.

Northern Spy by Flynn Berry – (3h 40 mins) A taut novel about two sisters who get entangled with the Irish Republican Army and the choices they make when they decide who, and what, they want to stand for. I had picked this book up on the recommendation of someone from my book group. This was definitely a page turner that I stayed up late to finish.

What God is Honored Here? Edited by Shannon Gibney and Kao Kalia Yang – This is a selection of essays written by Indigenous women and women of colour about their experiences with miscarriage and still birth. Each essay was so raw and emotional that I found I had to read my way through the book slowly, giving myself space between each essay. I’ve had several miscarriages, and while on they are very common, I think that I go back and forth between thinking of it as simply a medical issue on the one hand, and on the other hand something that is gut-wrenchingly difficult to go through and process.

Magic For Liars by Sarah Gailey read by Xe Sands – A novel that combines mystery with fantasy when PI Ivy Gamble is asked to investigate a murder at The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages where her estranged sister teaches. I thought this book was a lot of fun and Ivy Gamble’s voice was such a great combination of world weariness and reluctant compassion. I’m not a huge fan of fantasy and worlds where you can just use magic as a way to get by illogical plot points, but I thought this book was pretty good.

Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About The Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans, by Michaeleen Doucleff – (5h, 31m) Doucleff is an NPR correspondent who wrote this book after visiting a Maya village and noticing how they seemed to parent in a way that she was completely unfamiliar with as a Western Parent. She visits three villages and this book is about what she learns from their different parenting styles. I will say there is a lot that is click-bait-y about this book in it’s proclamation that Americans are doing parenting all wrong and that these different cultures have it figured out. It seems to be the latest in a long line of “Americans are parenting wrong!” books. While I think there are some useful points in this book, ultimately there was something about the book that didn’t sit well with me. First of all, I don’t think there is any “one size fits all” parenting advice; there is an infinite variety of parent/child combinations and every one operates differently. Secondly, I found a lot of Doucleff’s examples to be incredibly gendered. She writes a lot about how these cultures raise kids that are helpful, but in most of the examples she uses to illustrate her points it is the daughters tasked with helping around the house and caring for younger siblings. Furthermore, most of the conversations she has with parents in these villages are with the mothers. Fathers are largely silent. So while I think there are valuable lessons to be learned in Doucleff’s book about allowing your child autonomy and encouraging independence, I felt that her book perpetuated a lot of traditional gender roles in parenting. Which is not a fault, per se, but I think in a year when women have been hit so hard by pandemic care-giving, and women’s rights are being taken away in the name of progress, it’s not a message that I find comforting.

Weekend: Finding Space

The weekend turned out more spontaneously social than we had expected. We had planned to knock off a bunch of house chores, and hopefully get the Christmas lights up, but then social invitations popped up. With it being the long weekend, it felt like we had a luxurious amount of unscheduled time. I think even with the spontaneous gatherings, it felt like a good combination of social, holiday, and house chores.

We did two big “go-through-and-purge”s. With the kids we went through their books and filled a box with books they were no longer reading. I have mixed feelings about owning books. I love having books, and I can remember how each book came into our lives. Who gave them to us, the bookstore I impulsively picked it up, the Little Free Library the baby raided…. But the reality is, even though we make liberal use of the library, books keep coming into our lives, and space is finite, and I’ve been finding it harder and harder to bring hard copies of books into my life permanently.

We have a linen closet in our house that we dubbed “The Library”. Shortly after moving in, we realized that we had more books than towels. And the Husband and I always joked that we wanted a library in our house. There are also various bookshelves scattered throughout the house. The Library is mostly the things we aren’t currently reading. We spent the morning culling the bottom three shelves, namely where the children’s books were, and also going through every book in the kids’ room and in the living room bookshelf. Even still, we only ended up with a small box of books to disperse back to the Little Free Libraries in our area. For some reason, I thought surely there would be more books to go into the donate pile. But books that we hadn’t opened in ages were clung to and declared “keepers.” Well, at least we made enough room for the books that will come in as Christmas gifts, which was kind of the idea anyway.

I also went through the baby’s closet and swapped out the 18 month clothes for 24 month/ 2 T clothes. It’s always bittersweet for me, moving to the next size of baby clothes. I probably put it off way longer than is prudent, until the children are squeezed, sausage-like, into too tight leggings and t-shirts.

When the baby hit 18 months, all I could find were the boy clothes from the 4 year old. I have no idea where all the girl clothes were. Probably passed along? So the baby wore mostly boy marketed clothes. This time, when looking for the 24 month/2T clothes, I found a bin of boy and a bin of girl clothes. The girl clothes had been packed away for the past eight years and unpacking them brought back so many memories. I realized, too, that there were also clothes that I have no memory of. Not sure if I was working much more in those days or what. I have to admit, I love buying girl clothes – they are always so bright and cute and cheerful. I’m sure there’s some kind of gendered expectations there that I’m pushing subconsciously. But, truth – boy clothes are often just… boring and dull. Greys, blues, khakis, stripes.

With a morning and half an afternoon devoted to chores, we spent the rest of Saturday at a friend’s house, celebrating a birthday. It was one of those visits that start as an open ended “Come by and the kids can play while we chat and enjoy some beers” and evolves into “Let’s order dinner.” And five hours later, with bedtime a good half hour in the rear view mirror, we are packing very tired, happy kids into the car.

Sunday morning, we explored a Seneca Creek State Park. We have so many county and national parks near by that this park was not even on my radar, even though it is only thirty minutes away. We met up with a couple of families from my mom’s group for a playground and walk. We started off at a the nature playspace – basically a bunch of logs set up for clambering and jumping. From there it was about a half mile walk along a trail around the lake to a recycled tire playground. Of course the half mile walk took almost an hour, but each kid went at their own pace, exploring sticks and rocks and dirt as they went. The playground was great because there was something for all the kids, including a zipline that kept the nine year old busy. I often think she might be getting too old for playgrounds, which is tricky when the two younger kids do still very much love going. Often when we go to playgrounds, unless she is with a friend, she is great at playing with her younger siblings. It was great, though, that this playground could be engaging for her.

Morning play and walk at Seneca Creek State Park.

The evening we kicked off holiday movie season with watching Elf and having milk shakes. It was a good holiday weekend.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Being Thankful

The baby trying to carve the turkey. She needs a bigger knife.

Thanksgiving week! The three days before Thursday was two half days and a full day off school for the nine year old. For the half days she went to basketball camp at the rec center – masked and with one COVID vaccine shot, I felt like it was an okay activity on my risk scale. Then on the Wednesday full day off, she had a friend over for a playdate and they baked cupcakes from the Milkbar Kid’s Only cookbook. (I find calling it a playdate when the kids are nine… odd? At this point, aren’t they just “hanging out”? Certainly adults don’t call them playdates when they hang out.)

We had been planning on visiting a friend in Boston for Thanksgiving, but at the last minute she told us that she wasn’t going to be home, so we had a quiet family Thanksgiving at home. As is our tradition, we watched the Macy’s Day Parade and then the Dog Show. The Husband made sausage balls. We watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

Some things this Thanksgiving:
– Buttermilk brined a turkey breast and it turned out really good. I had to brine it two days ahead of time, and didn’t really have a bag to brine it in, so I used the InstantPot insert. Didn’t quite get the whole breast submerged, so I had to rotate it a couple times.
-I also didn’t have a rack or a roasting pan, so I just used a regular 13″x9″ Pyrex pan and made a little “rack” by laying some carrots, parsnips, and onions on the bottom of the pan. It worked really well, and the roasted vegetables were an unexpected bonus to the dinner table.
– The family being understanding and not at all cranky when I underestimated the amount of time it would take to cook the turkey. The recipe I had been looking at had been for half a turkey breast. ooops. We had planned to eat at 3pm, but it was closer to 4pm when we sat down.
-Playing Ticket To Ride. Well the Husband and the nine year old and I played Ticket to Ride. The two little watched, then ran around, then started flinging the spare trains across the room. I’ll be very excited when they can start to play too.

picture taken by the baby… surprisingly well done.

-two pies. I’m sure glad I wrote a post last year about the perfect pumpkin pie recipe so I could recreate it. Though the pie still cracked. For the apple pie, I used the apple pie filling I had frozen in October. For some reason, the bottom of the pie didn’t bake through and I had to stick it back in the oven after we had cut into it. I need to troubleshoot that. It wasn’t even that the crust was just soggy from the filling; it was still raw while the top of the pie was beautifully baked. Still everything was tasty.

two pies – imperfect, but still tasty. and fresh whipped cream.

The Friday after, a friend who lives around the corner had us over for hot pot. This was such a brilliant idea for a small outdoor dinner party! We set up our camp stoves outside in the backyard, had one pot with mild broth and one pot with spicy broth. The spicy broth was filled with red peppercorns and various hot pepper flavors, making my mouth tingle happily with each slurp.

I love hot pot. One of my favorite restaurants pre-pandemic was a place called Urban Hot Pot. Everyone had their own burner, and there was a conveyor belt that ran next to the tables with the raw food and you could pick what you wanted off the belt to put in your pot. You could also order off the menu but that wasn’t as seredipidously exciting. On the one hand, one wonders at the novelty of paying to actually cook your own food, but on the other hand, the variety and ability to just eat what you want offsets that for me.

Not wanting to show up empty handed, I brought a container of cut fruit (persimmons, grapes and the good Korean pears – seemed like the traditional fruit offering) and some homemade Hong Kong Egg tarts. I love having egg tarts when we go to dim sum and I’ve often wondered if I could make them at home. When you get egg tarts at restaurants they always seem so delicate and fancy, and I was afraid of not getting the right silky smooth texture for the filling. Turns out they are pretty simple, to make. Granted, I did make a layered pie crust rather than a truly flaky laminate crust, but the filling tasted just as good. I didn’t have tart tins, so I used the muffin tin, and I thought that worked really well.

And now we go into the Holiday Season. Advent starts in November this year, On Monday I stopped at the library and checked out a whole slew of seasonal books for our Advent Book Tradition. Between the library books and the books we already have, I feel like we have more than enough books, but some nights we can read two.

We have candles… last year we’d forgotten to buy candles until the night before so right then and there I put a reminder in our calendar for the first of November this year: “Buy Advent Candles.” And so this year they were ordered in plenty of time and we are ready.

After dinner on Thursday night I let the Husband clean up the Thanksgiving feast and took a walk outside. It was getting dark, that pinky dusk sky, and the weather was still quite warm. I put the toddler in the stroller and went for a 45 minute walk. I hadn’t been out of the house all day, and was starting to get antsy. (The Husband had taken the kids to the park before dinner.) Things were pretty quiet at 5pm, but I loved walking around and seeing houses lit from within, and some already lit from the outside with Christmas lights. I looked at some houses with long lines of cars parked in front, and realized that for a lot of these families this must be the first gathering in over a year and a half. Over a year and a half of lonely holidays, cautious celebrations, small gatherings, and assessed risk just to be with family. I pictured the full tables and hugs and love that these houses were filled with. It was a great way to start the holiday season.

I’ll leave you with this bit of randomness while out on a walk – a persimmon on a postal box:

What We Ate:

Saturday: Pizza (take-out) and Holes. We had read the book this year, and the nine year old wanted to see the movie. I thought the movie was well done, but I was disappointed that Shia LaBoeuf was cast as Stanley. He did a great job, but in the book, Stanley is overweight, and that’s a pretty important character point. I guess that’s a fault with the adaptation, not with the movie itself. Still, the book is really so perfect in how it unfolds, that the m

Sunday: Leftovers.

Monday: Stir Fried Tofu and Mushrooms with Fermented Black Beans. This was kind of a not-quite-Mapo Tofu recipe – not really what I expected, but still really tasty. We ate it with noodles.

Tuesday: Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup (from a box).

Wednesday: Chicken Soup with rice and farro, loosely based off a recipe from Dinner Illustrated. Only I added parsnips and butternut squash because we had a bunch of that to eat up.

Thursday: Thanksgiving!!! Buttermilk brined turkey breast *loosely following this recipe), fennel salad with oven wilted grapes (I was the only one who like this), roasted carrots and parsnips (roasted with turkey), cranberry sauce, sauteed green beans (the Husband’s garlic soy sauce method), rolls, gravy (from turkey drippings),

Friday: Pizza (take out) and A Christmas Movie Christmas. This movie was actually kind of funny – two sisters, one of whom loves Christmas movies, magically get transported into one and get to live out all the Christmas movie cliches. The ending was a little flat for me, but as Christmas rom-coms go, I thought this one was pretty fun and original in it’s familiarity.

Weekend: things they say

Last weekend, I hosted some friend from my mom’s group for a Sunday brunch in our backyard. I was a little nervous about the weather being too cold. But although the morning started in the mid 40s, by mid morning, it was into the low 50s and the sun was out. Sunshine always makes things warmer.

We don’t have any real play structure in the back yard, just a couple logs and a baby slide. (Oh and a water table, but that’s hardly a November activity.) At first I thought it might not be enough to entertain a bunch of kids. The Husband kindly opened a section of his garden for digging, and we put out his childhood Tonka trucks, and I threw out a bunch of balls and some books. And you know what? That plus the bagels and hot chocolate was more than enough to keep them busy. I’m glad I thought to put some books out; it gave the kids an excuse to sit quietly between bouts of frenetic activity.

My favorite thing the whole morning was the nine year old taking upon herself to entertain the younger kids. She read to them, she set up obstacle courses, she threw balls for them. She already has job offers to be a Mother’s Helper!

It was probably a little too much to try to squeeze in the morning get together between church and the four year old’s Mandarin class. I had to leave the kitchen a messy pile of dishes and hot chocolate and cream cheese crusted knives. But I think people are itching to gather again, and I’m eager as well. I do wonder when I’ll feel comfortable hosting and attending a large indoor gathering again. We’ve been over to friends’ houses and hung out indoors, but only when it is just their immediate family and the five of us. I feel like for now, it just feels safer and perhaps more cautious and easier mentally to decide that all gatherings should happen outdoors.

In other thoughts: Because we were a little concerned that the baby wasn’t speaking, earlier this fall, I started to keep a list of the words that she says. In September, it was mostly “b” words: ball, beep, baby, bu(s), beh (bear). In October, the list grew: cake, read, see (usually said after I take a picture of her because she wants to see the result), milk, Max, Mama, Dada, Walk, Me, (s)nack, up, yup, duck, Crocs, Bacca (for Chewbacca or really anything Star Wars related). Her vocabulary is such a microcosm of her world and the things that are important to her.

So far in November she has added: digger, moon, rock, bike, ca(r), pie, mitten. Also jie jie (older sister) and ge ge (older brother). And- a big milestone – she has started to put two words together. The first time being “No, mama!” She actually didn’t start to say “No” until quite recently. When asked a question, she usually would say “Yup!” if the answer was affirmative, or just give a nonchalant shrug for negative answers. But this month, she has started to say, “No!” And she is not shy about using it.

Other two word phrases so far: “Wake up!”, “Milk pees (please)!”, “No way!” All very loud declarations.

On the way home from Mandarin classes last weekend, the four year old said, from the back of the car, “Mama, my face is the whole world!”

I’m not exactly sure what he meant by the phrase, but it struck me as such a profoundly simple statement. I read somewhere that according to the latest census data, multiracial people are the fastest growing racial group in the United States and that they will some day be the majority racial category in this country. I find myself coming back to this prediction as I look at my son. As someone who grew up in a very white small town, watching mostly white people on tv, I do love the idea that my kids are seeing people who look like them in the media.

When I look into my son’s face, I do see so many things. On one level, I see Taiwan and the American Midwest. But I also see so much happiness and pensive thoughts and frustrations and tears and concentration and the light of discovery. I see the Husband as a child, and I see the potential of children for many things. Oh my goodness, “the whole world” indeed.

Weekly Recap+ what we ate: Miles to go before I sleep

Through a coincidence of scheduling, this week I had signed up each of the three kids for hiking programs with the county parks department. The weather was up and down all week – mostly down – so I was a little nervous they might be miserable. But I bundled the kids up and each excursion was quite fun. In terms of bundling, this year, I bought the older kids HeatTech underlayers from Uniqlo to layer under their clothes and they seem to be really happy wearing them. The baby has wool underwear hand me downs from the older kids. I also bought them all SmartWool socks when they were on sale last month. I’m hoping that between the underlayers and the winter coats, hats, gloves, and scarves, we will be well equipped for outdoor winter excursions.

The weekly forecast – quite a range of temps.

First up was the baby (okay, toddler) and a ramble through the woods. It was chilly, but we had fun. We looked under logs and found snails and beetles, and crunched through the fallen leaves, and enjoyed the fall colour and bare trees, and sat and had a snack on a pile of logs. The naturalist also pointed out ar eally cool tree that had really been two trees growing together, but one of the trees had fallen away, leaving some above ground roots like a scraggly wizard’s beard. I was utterly fascinated by the tangle of tentacles.

Discoveries in the woods.

At the end of the week was the nine year old’s turn. I had signed us up for a Full Moon Hike at one of our Nature Centers. The hike started at 7pm and actually wasn’t as cold as I had feared. Or maybe I was just overly bundled. The naturalist who led the hike was really enthusiastic and pointed out all sorts of ways for us to “observe” things on a hike using our sense of hearing. I was really surprised how bright the moon was – the only time we used flashlights was when the naturalist was doing a show and tell of some animal furs that she had brought along to illustrated the kinds of animals lived in the area.

The four year old’s chance came over the weekend, with a hike that the nature center called “Wild Child Hike”. The naturalist took the kids off the trail to find fallen trees and logs and rocks to climb and jump over and balance on. Some of the fallen trees feel in such a way that one end was wedged on other trees, creating tree trunk ramps that rose quite high off the ground. The four year old also spent much time just poking at termite soften stumps with a stick.

I was struck by how kids are happy to repeat actions without purpose or end point. The baby was at a toddler play group recently and there was a ball ramp toy that she played with endlessly, dropping ball after ball down the ramp and watching balls fall from one track to the other. Similarly with the four year old and his fierce stick poking and poking and slashing at rotten tree stumps. In Kieran Setiya’s Midlife he talks of telic and atelic activities – the former are things that you with with and end point in mind and the latter are activities without end points. He points to being able to engage in atelic activities as one of the keys to satisfaction in life. It occurred to me that this idea is one of those things that children have figured out, but which they lose the sense of as they grow up. Or perhaps they are taught that only telic activities have value. I feel like one of the luxuries of unemployment is being able to reconnect with the atelic activities in my life. It seems horribly self indulgent. But perhaps that’s the problem?

Something I Googled this week: “How to remove a doorknob with no screws”.

The baby has now figured out how to lock doors. Quite intentionally. This is a problem. She locked the door to the kids’ room this week. Twice. The second time, the nine year old managed to pop the lock with a butter knife. And that’s when we realized that it wasn’t a fluke and the baby was doing it on purpose. So we decided that the door knob had to come off. Only there were no visible screw by which to unscrew the door knob and remove it. Thank goodness for YouTube videos. It’s been a little strange to not have a doorknob. We will eventually replace it, but our house has these vintage (or retro, your pick) brass knobs with that irreplaceable patina of age and life, so, like many things with us, it might be a while before we figure out what we want to do.

Growing things:

I snapped a picture of this tree in the front yard of our first house. We are lucky enough that after we moved to our current house, we were able to rent out this house. Our first little house holds a lot of memories – we moved in right before we got married, had our rehearsal dinner there, brought two of our kids home from the hospital to this little yellow house… The Husband and I sometimes think we will move back there after the kids are grown and we need less space. This pear tree had been about half the size when we first moved in eleven years ago. It was a little sapling, almost haphazardly placed in the front yard. The Husband and I used to joke that the previous owners put it there to cover up a dead body, its presence was a little random bit of landscaping. Every spring the tree would explode with white blossoms and I would insist on taking pictures in front of it. We moved out of that house three years ago. This week when I was over doing some maintenance, I was struck by that feeling you get when you don’t see someone for a long time, and suddenly you see them and realize that they’ve been growing and flourishing while you weren’t there.

Growing siblings:

Usually the Husband picks up the kids after school, but I did the pick up run one day and decided to walk. It’s getting darker now – technically sundown comes just as the bus pulls up around 4:50pm. Even though the walk home is pretty short – less than half a mile – some days the walk is like herding cats. There is usually one kid who doesn’t want to walk, one kid who wants to explore every leaf and stick and one kid who is charging ahead. The other day, I was not in the mood for the walk to take 20 minutes, so I told the nine year old and the baby to hold hands. The nine year old, nose buried in her book, managed to hold her sister’s hand all the way home. I don’t know if it was the reading while walking, or the firm grasp on her sister’s hand, or the gorgeous winter sunset, but something about the whole scene made me want to burst with joy.

Speaking of heart bursting:

One morning, in the mad dash to get out the door and to school, I forgot something inside the house. I can’t remember what now. But I ran inside to grab it off the dining room table. And I looked up and something about the way the early winter sunlight streamed low and intense through the curtain just made me stop breathless. The room was bathed in this beautiful orange light, as if the curtain weren’t just cloth and thread, but the stained glass of a cathedral. And it didn’t matter, the half eaten cereal bowls and banana peels left on the table from breakfast, or the mismatched chairs, or the mess of papers… for that one moment, the dining room was the most perfect place in the world, and even though we were late and the morning was chaotic, I felt frozen, and I almost wept at the beauty of it.

Not the moment, but the same scene captured later in the day.

What We Ate:

Saturday: oooh can’t remember. It might have been leftovers.

Sunday: Leftovers. Grilled cheese Sandwiches for the kids.

Monday: Black bean soup and quesadillas.

Tuesday: Pearl Meatballs (pork meatballs covered with sticky rice), sauteed bok choy, and Breakfast at Shuko’s noodles (from Meera Sodha’s East). These noodes were pure saucy tasty comfort for me – udon noodles mixed with raw eggs and soy sauce. Sounds odd, but raw eggs and soy sauce is one of my favorite dipping sauces for hot pot, so it was actually a very nostalgic combination for me. Hot pot places don’t let you do the raw egg/soy sauce combo these days because of concerns of food safety, I guess.

Wednesday: Lentil Salad from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone.

Thursday: The Husband cooked – breakfast sandwiches.

Friday: Bah Minh sandwiches take out. No movie tonight because of Full Moon Hike.

Weekend: Being Boring

The kids’ Saturday activities are wrapping up; the four year old had his last soccer session and the nine year old has one more session of dance next week. There is still Mandarin Class for the four year old and swim clinic for the nine year old on Sunday, but we’re keeping Saturday pretty open for December so that we feel like we will have the capacity to partake in some holiday festivities as they come up. The Botanical Garden’s annual holiday train is outside this year, and I’m looking forward to a trip down to the Mall to see that. And I definitely want to take in one of the light displays in the area. And there is a Christmas Tree, and putting up the Christmas lights….

I’m not sure what possessed us, but on Saturday, we decided to take a trip to the Pringel Family Creamery, about an hour away. It seemed like a reasonable Saturday afternoon family adventure. We had gone there on the ice cream tour last summer and really liked the pimento cheese. They also have an Everything Bagel Cheese spread that is really good too. In the summer, there were lots of cows out and you could sit outside, eating your ice cream while watching the cows waddle through the pasture. It being November, there were only a few cows and it was too cold to eat ice cream outside. But I did enjoy my cherry chocolate chunk ice cream inside and that was nice.

Afterwards we found a little trail and went on, what I called a “tromp through the woods.” As it was already getting dark – the sun is setting by 5pm these days – we only went for about half an hour, but it was a nice little path and it was nice to stretch our legs among trees and streams and logs.

Sunday, I took the four year old to Mandarin class. I had to bring the baby with me, so I didn’t get my run in, but I did take the baby on a walk and we saw a family of deer. That was pretty cool. I know deer are kind of regarded as a nuisance around here, but it still makes me breathless to see one.

One of the websites in my Feedly is A Poem A Day, and the other day, Wendy Cope’s poem Being Boring dropped into my feed. The last lines of the poem are:

Someone to stay home with was all my desire
And, now that I’ve found a safe mooring,
I’ve just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.

I was thinking of this poem the other day, when my self-employed friend who is trying to navigate the world of online dating asked me, “What is it like to have a both a job and a life partner that you like? It’s like you have it all.”

Well, first of all, I only have a job that I really like off and on, which I think helps me feel really appreciate it. And I have a great husband, but we still squabble over socks (mine) left on the floor. And then I thought… I never really think that I “have it all”. Or if I do really have it all, this isn’t what I thought it would be like. All this mundane day to day. The diapers and bills and constant cleaning and tears and bedtimes and carpool and evenings exhausted zoned out in front of the tv. It is certainly a lucky and privileged kind of mundane life, but it is definitely not exciting. There are no European vacations (even pre-COVID) or fancy cars and I wear ratty sweatpants more than I care to admit. (Actually, not really. I am happy to admit that I live in sweatpants and leggings these days).

I mean a trip for Pimento cheese and cherry chocolate ice cream… that sounds like enough of an adventure for me some days.

Maybe the answer to my friend’s question is that having it all is actually pretty boring. And that’s a good thing. It’s that “Safe mooring” that Cope writes about.

Weekly recap + what we ate: little completed things and fun things

This week I finally installed the pencil sharpener. It’s one of those old fashioned hand crank sharpeners that had come with the house that my parents had bought. We actually already had one, but our was a vacuum seal one that never quite stuck and didn’t sharpen very well. Using it was always a frustrating endeavor of wedging and turning. When I was growing up, we had a pencil sharpener that my father had mounted on a piece of wood with a protruding rim on the bottom so that you could actually just put it on any table and the rim would sit flush against the edge of the table and keep it in place.

Anyhow, it has been a great debate between the Husband and me where to mount the pencil sharpener. I kind of wanted to put it in the coat closet. I used to work at a summer festival and there was an old fashioned pencil sharpener mounted inside the storage closet in the rehearsal hall. It wasn’t an obvious place to find a pencil sharpener because the closet was used for furniture storage from artist housing so no one every really went in there. Whenever someone would come up to me in rehearsal, asking, “Do you have a pencil sharpener?” I would point them to the closet. The nostalgic cry of joy and delight that usually resulted always made me really happy.

Despite my fond memories, the Husband pointed out that the coat closet was actually rather an impractical place for the pencil sharpener. He wanted it in the basement. Too far to go , I said. What about the linen closet, I countered. Still a closet. Back and forth. Finally we settled on just screwing it into the nine year old’s drafting table. We figured it wasn’t a permanent solution (I’m big on non-permanent solutions…), and at least it would be mounted then.

Two weeks later, I finally got the drill out and attached the pencil sharpener. It was one of those quintessential little tasks that gets put off but really takes only a few minutes to do. Although to be fair, it took the better part of an afternoon because I was also trying to keep the baby out of trouble. But it is mounted now and we can sharpen pencils with ease and convenience and it’s a lovely thing.

The other little “get it done” task I finished last week was replacing the zipper on the four year old’s hoodie. My Sister in law had given him this super adorable dinosaur hoodie, but the zipper broke earlier this year. I had been resigned to the hoodie never being worn again, but then I texted a good friend of mine who runs a costume shop.

“How difficult is it to replace a zipper on a hoodie?” I asked.

“Not too difficult. Except the hoodie might be stretchy and the zipper isn’t. Maybe hand stitch it first before running it through the machine.”

With those works of encouragement and after watching a few YouTube videos, I went to Joann’s and picked up a new zipper. Taking the old zipper out was a little scary, but I figured throwing out a hoodie with a broken zipper and throwing out a hoodie with a botched attempted repair was probably the same thing, so I might as well try. And it wasn’t as terrible as I thought it was. I had to find the zipper foot for my sewing machine and then google how to use it because my sewing machine is ancient. And an afternoon sitting in the sun with my seam ripper and an evening with my sewing machine and it was done! It’s not terribly pretty on the inside, but no one sees the inside anyway, I guess. And the four year old gets to wear the hoodie again. Frugal win and another thing for my “Things I learned to do” list.

Speaking of “Things I learned to do” list … on Thursday, the Husband had the day off for Veteran’s Day and we spent the day together, picking up spicy jerk chicken sandwiches for lunch, eating in a park and then running errands. One of his errands was a visit to a local music store. Earlier this month, I saw Steve Martin play the concertina on his new Hulu series Only Murders In the Building, and was instantly charmed. Well, the Husband thought that this would be fun and was going to buy me a concertina for Christmas. While at the store, though, we found out that they actually rent concertinas, and figuring that that was a lower price point for entry, we went ahead and did that. I’m really excited.

The weather this week has been up and down. Tuesday was sunny and 60s. I took the baby on a little walk on a local trail. We found some big leaves, bare trees, falling leaves, and rocky outcrops.

Also, randomly, a bench:

I would love to know the story of how this bench came to be placed by the stream. The path on this side of the trail is quite overgrown and narrow, so I imagine it must have taken some effort. I picture someone (or some two) deciding this was a lovely spot, and what it needed was a bench. And then lugging a bench through the grass and bramble and depositing it here, a little hidden, but not to hidden not to be found and enjoyed. It was much appreciated, though, for it made a lovely spot to sit and have a snack with the baby. Eventually the baby got tired of walking, so I put her in the carrier and she soon fell asleep. As I walked, I tried to capture pictures of the falling leaves, but that proved difficult, so I just sat on a rock while the baby slept in the carrier, and spent half an hour just watching leaves fall. It seemed hugely indulgent. But then again, who am I to wake a sleeping baby?

I capped the morning off by accidentally locking the keys in the car with the baby. Luckily the Husband works nearby and could run home and get my keys, but my morning outside stretched into the afternoon as I stood outside the car trying to keep the baby amused while she was strapped into her car seat inside the locked car. We watched a lot of videos from this website, including this beautiful and fascinating one showing insects taking off into flight. I’ve always resisted using a screen to amuse the baby, but I guess when she is locked in a car one learns to make exceptions and not stand on principal.

Other things to savor this week:
-Drizzly rainy walk to school, despite some complaints.

-This backpack, from my college days, still very much in use. I never guessed when I bought this backpack to cart textbooks and note books that twenty years later it would be my go to back for snacks and diapers and wipes. It’s had a lot of good adventures and shows no sign of stopping.

-This ever shifting reflection of morning sunbeams, bouncing off the creek and dappling the footbridge and rocks.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Mac and Cheese (the blue box) and Butternut squash soup (also from a box)

Sunday: Leftovers

Monday: Vegan Gnocchi Soup. This was really tasty and the Husband asked that it be put into our regular rotation.

Tuesday: Black beans nachos. I always forget what an easy meal nachos is. I guess it always seems like an appetizer to me, but it does make a really fast simple dinner.

Wednesday: Kale Paneer from Meera Sodha’s East. My favorite way to use up a plethora of kale.

Thursday: The Husband made fried rice.

Friday: Pizza and Fireman Sam and Snoopy. It was the four year old’s turn to pick the movie.

Weekend round up: dark days

The clocks set back last weekend. We managed fine. Saturday there was soccer and dance and then a visit from an old friend and mentor of mine who was in town. We spent lots of time outside and at parks. Saturday night we family Mario Kart night, which we hadn’t had in a while. I’m still phenomenally bad at Mario Kart; the four year old and I trade for last place throughout the game.

The baby was up early on Sunday. But she’s always up early. And honestly, the difference between 5:00am and 6:00am is kind of negligible on a Sunday morning. At the other end of the day, I had planned a Zoom book club meeting for my mom’s group at 8:30p, scheduled weeks ago, not realizing that it was Daylights savings and that we might all be exhausted by then. Six of us managed to joined the call and while we were all spent and tired by 9:45p, it was a nice chat and catch up.

I read this essay in the Washington Post that pointed out that we are now entering into the 90 darkest days of the year. Saturday, November 7th is 45 days from the Winter Solstice. And on the flip side, February 4th is 45 days after. To think of it another way, this is the darkest quarter of the year. Metaphorically speaking, I hope.

The other day, the four year old asked if we could go back to the “Kangaroo Pool”.
“No,” I said. “That pool is only open during the summer.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointed. He thought for a moment then asked, “When will it be water Wednesday?” Water Wednesday is waterplay day at school.
“Water Wednesday is only during the summer,” I said.
“What is it now?”
“Right now it’s fall. Almost winter. It’s too cold to be out in the water.”
“Why is all the fun things during the summer?”
“Well,” I said, “We can do fun things in the winter too….”

I started making a list of fun things in the winter for us to do. And at dinner the whole family made suggestions:
– build snowmen
-drink hot cocoa
-make snow angels
-drink tea
-Christmas
-ice skating

Even though the nine year old will be fully vaccinated by Christmas, I think this will still feel like a pandemic winter in a lot of ways. Definitely not as restrictive as last year, but still no air travel or family visits or indoor dining as a family. I did notice that the nine year old’s favorite restaurant is having live Irish music again, and I was thinking that might be a nice celebratory event for two weeks after her second shot, just her, the Husband and me.

Still, I need to take time to think through and plan some things to enjoy and savor in these next ninety days. I do love a good lazy hunkering, but I know there are also many ways to embrace this darkest quarter beyond the house. Plus there is my 1000 hour outside aspirations. Even with the specter Global warming looming, I don’t want to take the current mild weather for granted.

The holidays are imminent, and will be here before we know it, and then it will be the new year and that fresh page. The to-do lists are long and sometimes overwhelming. I want to make sure time is spent “being”, not just “doing”.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: adventures and advances

I feel like we hit a parenting milestone this week when the Husband and I helped the nine year old with her long house model. There was a bit of arguing and tears and probably more than a little co-opting of the project by the grown ups. I’m sure the latter was cause for the former. In the end, we had a lumpy, twig, bark and hot glue structure in a base of modelling clay.

I never had to do models or dioramas when I was in school. I do remember my mother helping my brother fashion a puppet of White Fang out of toilet paper tubes held together with cooked white rice as glue since white glue wasn’t something we kept on hand. My mother was endlessly and optimistically creative. She could see the possibilities in so many mundane things, a artistic combination of clever and frugal.

The Husband suggested that we send the nine year old on the bus with her model, but I couldn’t bear the possibility of our hard work getting crushed or dropped, so I drove her to school the next day, her longhouse safely ensconced in the passenger seat next to me. I’m sure (I hope) that I will become less possessive of the school projects.

In my habit tracker, I have a category for blog/art. The “art” category was leftover from this past year when I was taking the drawing class… a reminder to spend time every week creating. The art boxes on the habit tracker have been woefully unchecked since spring. But I realized that this week and last thatI have been making art. I mean these cardboard and tape and twig and glue concoctions… That’s art, right?

The rest of the week was a combination of drizzly days and mild days. On the drizzly day, in my effort to spend time outside, I took the baby to a new to me park – it wasn’t really a park; it was an old golf course that is no longer in use, but which the city took over. The city is still trying to decide what to do with it, but in the meantime, it features a mesh of walking paths. It’s interesting to see the vestiges of the sand traps from the golf course interspersed with over grown natural vegetation.

Wednesday was chilly. We awoke to frost on the ground and ice on the windshield. I pulled out the hat and mittens and winter gear. There was a frustrating moment of stress when I couldn’t find the ice scraper as the kids were loading themselves into the car on the way to the nine year old’s 7:15am piano lesson. I texted her teacher to know we were running late, turned on the heat and fans, and tried to figure out how to clear the windows. “Use the windshield fluid!” The Husband reminded me, and luckily the icy layer was thin enough and that did the trick.

We have a (admittedly arbitrary) rule that the heat doesn’t get turned on until November, and we certainly didn’t need to this year. In the past, getting through October without turning the heat on was always a challenge, but this year I’ve been lulled by the mild, summer-like fall. Its kind of like the temporal equivalent of hedonistic adaptation.

Anyhow, I’ve located the ice scrapers and I’ll be ready next time.

Thursday the nine year old was off school so we took our Fall trip to Longwood Gardens. I had a fear of the children being cold and then complaining and immovable, so I made everyone wear long underwear, hats, and gloves in addition to their coats. Turns out it was a little bit of overkill. The weather was sunny and brisk and beautiful.

I’ve been doing these mediations with the four year old on the app Smiling Mind, and one of the practices is about noticing colour. In the meditation, the voice slowly recites the colours of the rainbow and encourages the listener to find each colour as he says them. I’ve found this also to be a great game to play with the kids. I always think of Fall as a colourful season, but one of a limited palette. But while, there certainly was a riot of oranges and yellows, the other colours proved easy to find too. Except blue. I didn’t find any blue plants, so the blue sky will have to do.

Rainbow!

On the way home, there was this beautiful evening sky, which I thought especially fun juxtaposed against the red taillights.

I had written last post about how quickly the county and pharmacy’s 5-11 COVID vaccine appointments booked up super quickly. Well on Thursday while we were at Longwood Gardens, I checked my email and our pediatrician’s office had sent an email saying they had vaccine appointments available. The Husband got on the phone immediately and was able to book the nine year old for her first shot the next day! And to be super efficient, we also booked flu shots for her and the four year old. (The baby got her flu shot at her 2 year check up.) I’m so excited and relieved that this is done. There seems to be new appointments opening up every few days so I know I ultimately didn’t have to worry about not finding her an appointment, but still it’s good to know that the first shot is in her arm. We have the second shot scheduled for after Thanksgiving so by Christmas she’ll by as fully immunized as she can be at this point. Hooray!

The whole process was quick an pretty painless. A 9am appointment. 15 minutes waiting in the reception area afterwards for side effects and then we were on our way. The nine year old said that the flu shot actually hurt more than the COVID shot. The four year old was so cute… he thought the Band-Aid was the flu shot and refused to take it off. And when he took a bath he was so worried that the Band-Aid would fall off. I had to explain the whole thing to him several times and eventually he did let me take the Band-Aid off.

Things I’m looking forward to for the nine year old:
– eating in a restaurant. Her favorite restaurant is having live music again and the Husband and I are thinking this might be the place to take her on a special daddy-mommy-daughter celebration date.
– joining a basketball league. She has been taking indoor dance and swimming, but somehow the close contact nature of basketball seems more risky, so we’ve been putting this off.
-maybe having a birthday party for her. She has a winter birthday so there aren’t a lot of outdoor options. Of course this means I’ll have to plan a birthday party, which I’m not terribly looking forward to. (But I’ve been reading Oliver Burkeman’s book 4000 Weeks, and he says that once we confront the finitude of our lives, we learn to feel fortunate for even the most painful and mundane tasks…. I’m trying to embrace that.)

So a very full week, but not much knocked off the to do list. Many tasks just got migrated to this week. I did do my emissions test (and paid the late fee) and picked out tile for a rental house repair. I guess two things on the “Done” list is okay. And we did finish watching Schmigadoon, which given our poor record for finishing anything on TV, does feel like an accomplishment. And it was a delightful show too.

Oh: a haiku from last month that I just now found randomly in my time log journal:

September apples
A two bushel haul. Transformed
to October sauce.

What We Ate: The nine year old wanted to plan the menu this week

Saturday: Pizza leftover from the previous night. And Star Wars finally.

Sunday: Halloween – not quite sure. It was probably leftovers and lots of candy.

Monday: Mac and Cheese and Cucumber Tomato Salad. The stuff in the blue box.

Tuesday: Salmon Burgers and Caesar Salad.

Wednesday: Cornflake oven fried chicken and roasted veggies (Squash, sweet potoates, leeks, and potatoes – basically kitchen sink)

Thursday: Chipotle on the way home from Longwood Gardens

Friday: Pizza (Husband made) and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. I hadn’t seen this when it originally came out in 2005 and it’s surprisingly less dated than many other movies from the time. Afterwards, I saw that it had been directed by a man, and that struck me as interesting because it feels like this kind of female friendship movie is something that would most definitely be directed by a woman these days. And it made me wonder about how so much of the movies that I watched and loved in the 80s and 90s were directed by men, and whether of not the way I saw myself reflected in the media I consumed was influenced by the male gaze. Would my ideas of what is considered attractive been different?

Weekend recap + good news Wednesday

No big adventures this weekend – just getting ready for Halloween and helping the nine year old with her Native American shelter project, watching Star Wars, and finishing season two of Ted Lasso. I really enjoy Ted Lasso, but so far each season has ended on kind of a mixed emotional note.

Saturday I also carved the second pumpkin. The four year old wanted it to look like our dog friend Max whom we were dog sitting that day.

I was up late finishing the baby’s Han Solo Costume. I had bought a white polo shirt and blue sweat pants. I added a red stripe to the sweatpants with red duct tape and then made a vest with lots of pockets out of an old t-shirt and boot covers out of black felt.

Halloween was on Sunday, and the kids went trick or treating for the first time in quite a while. In 2019 there was the threat of bad weather so they didn’t go, and last year there was no trick or treating because of COVID. I think this was the four year old’s first real experience of trick or treating. We went out with some friends because unfortunately our neighborhood is pretty quiet. The nine year old took off with her friends and I ended up with the four year old and the baby. Which was just as well because the baby was Han Solo, except the costume was a little obscure unless she was with the Millenium Falcon. And even then I’d say only four or five people knew who she was. She was quite a trooper and walked the whole hour we were out, only wanting to be carried for the last block. She was a little hesitant at first, but once she realized that there was candy involved, she was very much game to walk up to strangers.

Our friend’s neighborhood was a great place to go. Lots of houses were decorated and people sat out in front of their houses, so it was easy to tell who was giving out candy and which houses to skip. Most people also put the candy on a table, so you could go up and say hello, but still keep a distance. You could tell that the adults handing out the candy loved Halloween and seeing the different costumes. It was just a really nice atmosphere.

I was really happy with how the Millenium Falcon turned out and it got lots of attention. Several people said that it was the best costume of the night. That made me feel really happy. Also making me happy – the baby gets really excited about the Falcon and will point at it and say, “Bacca!” as in Chewbacca.

We trick or treated til about 6:45p – the weather stayed mild and the sky light for much longer than I thought it would. Afterwards, I sat and chatted with our friends for a little bit, while the kids ate candy then we went home to the Husband who stayed home on the off chance someone came by. No one did. The Husband was smart and didn’t open the candy, so I guess we can return it. Which is a little disappointing for me because he got this really cool mix with Reese Peanut Butter Cups, Twizzlers, Kit Kats and Sour Patch Kids. I love all those things and was really excited to see a mix that combined chocolate and candy.

We took the kids to two of our neighbor’s house because we had promised to . One of them are new to the neighborhood and I knew they would be disappointed to get no trick or treaters. It was nice to chat to and lament the lack of trick or treaters in our neighborhood. I think it’s just the nature of how our street is next to a really busy street, so not many people will cross the road to our house. Also there aren’t a lot of kids on our street. I hope that evolves and changes.

so sad no one came to see these jack o’lantern masterpieces.

Two things that made me teary with joy today:

Michelle Wu elected as Mayor of Boston. Growing up, I think I internalized the idea that Asians, particularly Asian women could do great things, but in roles of quiet support and service. I didn’t grow up seeing Asian women in leadership roles, particularly in one that might be considered politically radical. Representation matters. I don’t know if Michelle Wu will be a good mayor or not, but I do know that seeing her lead a major American city will help tear apart the model minority narrative and hopefully inspire other Asian girls to not just be support, but be leaders and the face of civic change. In many ways that big picture is just as important as the immediate one.

COVID vaccines approved for children 5-11 years old. I’ve been hunting for available appointments. The County released a bunch of appointments around 5:30pm, and they were already gone by 7pm. I know that all my kids will be vaccinated eventually, but I’m feeling somewhat compelled to sit at my computer trying to secure a vaccine appointments for the nine year old.