Diane

Weekly recap + what we ate: Thinking about what I do.

Last week was kind of a quiet week, but still had some nice moments. My cousin was in town and I had a good time hanging out with her. We didn’t do anything touristy, just folded her into the usual household chaos. On Tuesday she drove the 5 year old to school so I was able to bike to school with the 8 year old. After we met my cousin at the school, she put both my bike and the 8 year old’s bike in her car and we went to a yoga class. My cousin is really good at finding fitness classes wherever she goes – she’s a bit of a digital nomad and is always travelling – she goes to Barcelona next. She found a nearby yoga studio that had a free first class offer so we signed up for a yoga core class. I was a little leery about that “core” part going in, but the class turned out to be super gentle. Maybe too gentle? But it was very relaxing.

Last week was also Back To School Night for the elementary school kids. I used to always skip Back to School Night when the oldest was in elementary school. her school was 30 minutes away and to trek up there didn’t feel worth it to me. I will say, I prefer the middle school back to school night to the elementary school one. In middle school we get to go class to class – it’s a little like human Frogger. In elementary school, the teacher gets 45 minutes, and we all sit there. I feel simultaneously bombarded with information and at the same time unaware of what my kids’ classes will be like. But still, it was nice seeing the kid’s classroom.

The weekend that followed was a very full weekend for us, but all good things. Saturday we had voice lessons for the 13 year old, a kids’ birthday party to go to, a soccer game for the 8 year old, and 5 year old and I had our first tap class, then I went to work and the Husband took the two big kids to church in the afternoon. Writing it all out, it seems like a lot, but I feel like everything flowed into one another and the Husband and I took on separate kid events. The birthday party was at a neighbor’s house, so we actually sent the 8 and 5 year old over by themselves so that I could mow the front lawn before heading over myself. I love that we are at the age of drop off birthday parties. I do like talking to other parents, but it sometimes feels as if we are constantly going to birthday parties, so it’s nice when we can just drop and go on with our lives for a little bit.

For sure tap class was a highlight. Tap class was LOUD, first of all. I should have expected that, but I was unprepared for how the room reverberates from movement and sound waves. There is something really fun about being able to make all that noise. I don’t know how much technique we’ll learn – the class is more like one of those Parent and Me music classes where the goal is just to get the kids to move. The instructor taught us a few ways to make noise with our feet and then we danced in circles and then in lines and did lots of twirling and pretending that we were rabbits and jumping across the room. There were a few parents that clearly knew what they were doing, and I felt very self conscious about not knowing what I was doing, but I’m going to try to get over that.

After class, I had to work, covering a chorus music rehearsal – this is where the chorus learns the music, so it’s a pretty hands off rehearsal for me. I mostly go to check attendance and make sure everyone gets the breaks they are owed per union contract. The tap studio is in the same building as the one we rehearse in, so the 5 year old tagged along with me to work, rather than me having to rush her home and then come back. Having her at work was kind of fun. She helped me call break warnings to the chorus: “Two minutes left in the break!” She was surprisingly loud. I had to do some paperwork while the chorus was learning their music, so the five year old did some collage projects with old magazines and had some hot chocolate that we had in the office.

Once I got off work, we headed over to our friends’ house. These were the same friends who had the birthday party earlier. I had felt bad leaving the party early to go to tap class, but our friends said to come over in the evening after work – they had rented a bounce house for the party and it wasn’t going to get picked up until 7pm, so the party was going to continue. The Husband met me there, and he had picked up dinner at a fried chicken and BBQ place. One annoying thing is that our order was missing things, but the restaurant is so far away it wasn’t worth going back – I’ve written to them to see if we can get our money back, but haven’t heard from them. So irksome. But the food was tasty. We stayed at our friend’s house until it was time to put the kids to bed and then headed home.

Sunday, we went contra dancing in the afternoon. The few dances we’ve been to lately have been at the Civic Center, but this Sunday dance was at the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park, where the Husband and I met. Back before the pandemic there were two contra dances a week at Glen Echo – one of Friday night and one on Sunday night. I think after COVID they went down to just the Friday night dance, but now a monthly Sunday afternoon dance has been added. I really like the Sunday afternoon time slot – we can take the kids and stay for most of the dance without worrying about bedtime or the kids having an exhausted meltdown. If the kids don’t feel like dancing they can go to the playground next to the ballroom and play there while the Husband and I dance. On Sunday, the 13 year old danced maybe four dances and the 5 and 8 year olds did two or three. During the waltz, all three kids made up some kind of dance and twirled each other around the dance floor. I had originally thought we would only stay until 5:00pm, but we ended up staying and dancing all but the last contra dance – it was a lot of fun – the music was hot (I had been skeptical because the band had a flute and a flue is not something I associate with contra dance music), the people were friendly, and the dancing was fast and flowing.

How do you answer “What do you do?” Between parties and the start of school, I feel like I’ve met lots of new people lately. Perhaps this is a very DC type of thing, but the instinct is always to ask (or be asked), “What do you do?” It’s kind of a fraught question these days, to be honest. I just never know if someone is a federal employee who has just lost their job or what. Anyhow, “What do you do?” has been on my mind a lot recently, and I’m reminded of something I heard once (maybe it was a Ted Talk or a podcast, I’m sorry I can’t remember) where this phrase was offered as a way to answer the dreaded questions: “I help X do Y.”

There is something I really love about that framing – it opens up so many possibilities to be descriptive and to really get to the heart of how I spend my time at work. I’ve been thinking of ways to answer “what do you do?” with that phrasing. Some things I’ve come up with something to say instead of saying, “I’m an opera stage manager.”

On a macro level: “I help people tell stories onstage.”

Or on an even bigger picture level: “I help people experience emotions through art.”

On a micro level: “I help singers know when to go out onstage.” “I help a director’s vision for a show come to life” “I help union members get their required break.” “I help technical departments know what’s going on in the rehearsal room.”

Of course, it’s not all about the work I get paid for either…

“I help my kids grow up to not be assholes.” Or at least I try.

There is something slightly self-effacing about this approach, to be sure. Sometime I think, “If I were a man, would I phrase my job as one of assisting rather than of being the main event?” But I also think that by seeing where I fit in the bigger picture of what my organization does, seeing my job as a facilitator of dreams and expression – I think that is a very grounding idea to keep in mind, especially these days. There are definitely days at work when I cling hard to the belief that telling stories onstage, providing a place for people to be immersed in music and escape the real world for a couple hours – that this is worthwhile work. Granted, on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs opera/music/art is hardly the base of the triangle, but don’t you think that in America of 2025 we should be able to aspire to the top of Maslow’s pyramid?

Back to answering “What do you do?” Another way I read lately to approach the question is to say, “You know how [thing that happens]? Well I [whatever part I play in the process]”

So for me, that might be: “You know how when you go to a show and the scenery moves or the lights change colours? Well, I’m the person who tells the stage crew when to make those things happen.” Or “You know when you go see a play and a character pulls a book out of a pocket? Well I’m the one who tells the costume shop which pocket the book comes from and how big the book is.” I like this idea of taking something that might be a common experience for every one and give people a behind the scenes view. I think we all do things – in work, in life – that are out of the public eye, or that might not be interesting to other people in the minutia of detail, but when seen in the context of something people are familiar with, the minutia of our job feels illuminating.

But all that to say – I’ve been trying to avoid asking the dreaded “What do you do?” question when I meet new people. To be honest I’m struggling a little with how to initiate conversations instead. Sometimes I ask where people grew up/ if they are from the area and see where the conversation goes from there.

I’m going to leave you with this bit of found poetry – the 5 year old loves to open up a note on my iPad and draw. Lately she also has realized that if you type in a letter or two, the iPad will automatically suggest a couple words. I mean she can’t read yet, so she is just choosing words at random from the suggested ones. Here is her opus. I can’t help but to think there is something worth embracing there:

Grateful For:
-A surprise half day with the kids and being available to pick up the kids early unexpectedly. On Monday the water main at the elementary school broke and the Principal sent an email at 12:50pm saying that the students would be dismissed at 1:20pm. Luckily my kids took the bus home, because from what I understand, pick up at the school was chaotic. I’m glad I didn’t have to battle the lines of people trying to find the kids they were supposed to pick up. I know a lot of parents just couldn’t pick up their kid with such a late notice for the early closure, so I’m glad I wasn’t working that day. At any rate, I had a bonus half day with the kids thanks to the water main break. We went to the library and then we went to Hmart, where the K-pop Demon Hunters soundtrack was on shuffle repeat much to the delight of the kids who started dancing in the aisle. Good thing HMart wasn’t too crowded at 2:30pm on a Monday.

-Discount bananas. There were bags of ripe bananas at the grocery store being sold for $2.99/ bag, so I grabbed a bag and turned them into banana chocolate chip muffins. I used this recipe from the NY Times and the streusel crumb topping really made this muffin sing. (If you make the recipe, I only used half a cup of sugar and the muffins still came out plenty sweet.)

-That it is still light in the morning. Granted the days are getting shorter, but I’m grateful that it is still light at 6:45am when I get up.

-Bike trails all the way to school.

-The bushes of Sweet Autumn Clematis that I walk by on the way to the bus stop. The smell so sweet, a nice pick me up reminder to breathe. Also grateful for the Seek app that identified the plant for me.

-People who are kind to my kids and make them feel welcome. Two things happened last week that made me grateful for people who accept kids as part of the fabric of life. When I had to have the 5 year old tag along to work, the chorus was all super nice to her. And when she announced the end of the break in her surprisingly loud voice, the chorus gave her a huge round of applause. Then at the contra dance, everyone was really kind to the kids. The two little kids like to dance as one person, three legged race style – which I’m sure can be annoying because in addition to having an extra body to navigate, the kids don’t always know how to follow the call. But I had a few people come up to us and say how wonderful it was to see kids at the contra dance, so I’m really grateful their presence was accepted and even celebrated. It could have been just as easy for people to be annoyed at the presence of my kids but they weren’t.

-A little bit of rain and the cooler weather that it brought.

-Fresh basil. I fear that summer is coming to a close and our days of fresh basil might be numbered. I will savor it while I can, though.

Looking Forward To:

-The 5 year old’s birthday party. We’re having just a handful of kids to play in the park and decorate cookies. We’ve ordered pretzels and we’ll have croissants and fruit and cake and maybe a charcuterie plate. It’s a morning party, so we’re not ordering pizza – I’m a little afraid I might get flamed for not having pizza. Pizza seems like such a staple of a kids’ party. But the party is from 10a-11:30am, so I thought to do more of a breakfast theme.

-Contra dance in Shepherdstown, WV. The Husband met someone at the Sunday dance who runs the contradance in Shepherdstown, WV and so we’ve decided to go for their dance in October. He’s paired it with an afternoon of hiking because I was lamenting that I haven’t been hiking in quite a while. It seems like an ambitious afternoon/ evening, but I’m excited to try.

-This is far into the future, but I’m looking forward to one day having shade. A few years ago, the county cut down a tree in our that strip of grass in front of our house between the sidewalk and the street. (What is that slice of grass called anyway? Google has soooo many words for it – verge, parkway, right of way, hellstrip??? This seems like a good summary.) And then about a year or so later they planted a tree. A little tiny tree. I look forward to the day that the tree is not so tiny and there is once again shade under which to park my car. Of course I guess that also means bird poop on my car too….

Someday, son, you will grow as tall as that baby tree on

-Just started listening to this – I wanted a nice cozy listen and this is fitting the bill so far:

What We Ate:

Monday – Coq au Vin in the Instant Pot. The 8 year old LOVES this recipe from the Good Housekeeping InstantPot book. The rest of the family could take or leave it. But it makes him so happy so I make it for him two or three times a year.

Tuesday – Crispy tofu tacos with black beans. Recipe from NY Times Cooking. These were very delicious. I made extra beans and had bean and cheese burritos for lunch the rest of the week. Vegan. (except the kids slathered their tacos in sour cream.)

Wednesday – Pasta with sauteed zucchini and spinach. This was Back To School Night and we had meant to order pizza because the neighbor’s kids were going to come over and the 13 year old was going to watch them while the parents went to back to school night. But at the last minute they didn’t have to come over so I decided not to spend money on pizza and made a catch all pasta with veggies that were leftover in the fridge. It was quite tasty.

Thursday – The 13 year old’s day to cook. She made cod baked in foil and roasted potatoes.

Friday – pizza (take out) and movie night. I think the family watched the Lego movie. Again.

Saturday – Fried Chicken Carryout at our neighbor’s house.

Sunday – tortellini with marinara sauce and fresh pesto. Steamed green beans on the side. Easy and filling supper to throw together after getting home from the dance.

I seem to be a bit behind in posting again what with the weekend so close and all. Oh well. Hopefully I’ll have another South AFrica Post for you all next week. In the mean time, hope you have a great weekend!

What do you say when someone asks “What do you do?” Finish the sentence: “I help _____ do ____.” What would you do with a bag of overripe bananas? What do you call the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street????

South Africa 2025 – Part 1, Days 1-3. Flights, London, Johannesburg

So Yes, I did go to South Africa earlier this summer, and “Write South Africa Trip Recaps” has been on my to do list since then, but for whatever reason I’ve been finding it hard to get it all down. Well last week, my sister in law sent me a picture:

She FINALLY got the postcard that I sent her. It took two months. And she’s in Amsterdam, so who knows when the post cards to America will arrive…. But I think her text gave me a bit of a kick in the butt to not wait for motivation (and fittingly because I was pondering the subject of motivation earlier this year) , and just sit and write South Africa recaps. So here we go…

TLDR: South Africa is an amazing country – it’s history is both prehistoric and very recent, which makes it feel very different from any other country that I’ve visited. We saw a lot of beautiful, wonderful things, and we saw a lot of really heart breaking, hard things. Wherever we went, though, our guides were willing to talk to us honestly and openly. My advice for anyone going to South Africa, is to do so in a way that allows you to connect with South Africans, to hear their stories about their past and about their thoughts and dreams for the future. Also – all that means that these recaps won’t be full of beautiful scenery (thought there was definitely some of that). But I’m not a travel blogger, so I don’t imagine you all are here for gorgeous pictures….

First off- why South Africa? Our trip to South AFrica was organized by EF Tours, a company that does educational travel for middle and high school students, both domestic and international. The 14 year old’s English teacher has been a trip leader for EF tours for several years now, having taken students to Italy, Vietnam, Japan, and Brazil. The past couple of trips that I had seen flyers for had been to places that either we had already been to, or which I could see us going to on our own. For whatever reason, South Africa was a place that felt daunting to plan a trip to on our own. So when I saw that the summer 2025 trip was to South Africa, I really wanted to go. Truth, I probably wanted to go more than the 13 year old.

EF takes care of everything – flights, accommodations, tour guides, transportation, most meals. We just sign up, give them our money, pack our bags and passport and show up at the airport. The last time I did a travel tour was twenty years ago, when I went with my mother to Egypt and Turkey. Or maybe it was two separate tours? I don’t remember – my mother has a friend who is a travel agent/tour guide, and her friend often takes friends on tours as guinea pigs to work out the kinks before she makes the tours available for her business. Turkey and Egypt were two of those test tours. Anyhow, multi day tours aren’t necessarily something that I usually gravitate towards – I think it’s a cost and flexibility thing for me. I will say, though, this EF tours was really well run. Each day was PACKED. I might have liked to travel at a more savoring pace, but I did appreciate how much we covered in one week and how little mental energy it took.

Our flight left at 10pm on a Monday evening. It would be a day and a half of travel, including a long layover in London. The Husband and the 5 year old dropped us off at the airport. Touchingly, the 5 year old was really upset we were leaving – she cried in the car the whole way to the airport. But the Husband took her to McDonalds on the way home and apparently she stopped crying. Hah.

The flights were all very smooth. On the flight to London Heathrow, I slept some, I watched some tv, read. Luckily I was in an aisle seat, so I could get up and stretch and go to the bathroom whenever I wanted. For some reason, the 13 year old was sitting a few rows behind me and didn’t want to switch seats to sit closer to me even though the seat next to me was empty. We arrived at Heathrow in the late morning and had a nine hour layover, so we took the Heathrow Express into London, getting off at Paddington Station. I highly recommend the Heathrow Express – we were in London in about 20 minutes. We were all much too exhausted to really do anything, and plus we had all our carryon luggage with us, so we walked to Hyde Park where we could rest our feet. The 13 year old and I found a nice place to sit under a tree; I bought us an iced chai and a vegetarian sausage roll at a cafe in the park and we just soaked up the sun and shade and people watched and sketched in our sketch books.

Sketch of the Italian Gardens at Hyde Park

For lunch our group wandered back towards Paddington Station and we all found lunch on our own. I got fish and chips from Micky’s Fish and Chips – one of those tiny counter service and two table places that you read about in rom com books. They really exist folk! The fish and chips did not come wrapped in newspaper, like I was lead to believe from the movies, but the portions were HUGE! I felt bad because I bought two of the smallest size and we only ended up eating one. We sat in a park that had Paddington statues and ate our fish and chips. I sketched some of the buildings across from the park. Even though we weren’t doing any “touristy” things, the few hours we spent in London were still exciting, with that buzz of being in a foreign country.

After we finished out lunch and rested in the park, we met back up with out group and headed back to Heathrow airport for the next leg of our flight- a twelve hour flight to Johannesburg. The flight itself was pretty uneventful, I watched movies and slept and read a little and tried to get up and stretch once in a while. We arrived in Johannesburg at 7:00 am- it was a long day and half of traveling, but our adventures were just beginning!

Day 1: Arrival in Johannesburg. We were met at the airport by our tour guide and he got us on our bus. There were two other school groups in our tour – one from North Carolina and one from Bethesda, MD, which is actually near us. Both the groups were from high schools, and interestingly were all girls. (There were two boys in our group) We were taken immediately on a tour of Soweto, a township in Johannesburg that is southwest of central Johannesburg. Soweto was formed in the 1930s when the government, looking to segregate the population of South Africa, created “Black” townships and moved a lot of Black people there.

This first day we learned a lot about the history of Apartheid and the fight for equality in South Africa. The topics were very sobering and it might have been a little too heavy for us all just having got off an overnight international flight, but I’m glad to have seen all the spots we visited.

The bus took us through Soweto, and we had a local guide, Mama Queen, who told us about the history of Soweto. Even today, parts of residential Soweto have no electricity or running water. Mama Queen said that after the end of Apartheid, the new government said housing was a basic human right, but the government has not been able to deliver on that.

Our first stop in Soweto was the Hector Peterson Museum. Peterson was a 12 year old boy who was killed in the Soweto uprisings in 1976, when students gathered to protest the use of Afrikaans as the primary language in schools. Outside the museum there is a statue in tribute to Hector Peterson and inside the museum were many first person accounts if the Soweto uprisings. The accounts were from both sides of the conflict, and it really made me think about how deeply entrenched and systematic racism is. In the middle of the museum was a courtyard scattered with bricks, each brick with the name of someone who died in the uprising.

This Memorial features the famous picture of Hector Peterson’s dead body being carried to the hospital by 18 year old Mbuyisa Makhubo. Makhubo ended up fleeing South Africa and no one really know where he ended up

Courtyard with the names of people who dies in the Soweto Uprisings on 1976.

We next visited Nelson Mandela’s house in Orlando. Before the trip had just finished Mandela’s memoir Long Walk to Freedom, and he writes often about this simple house where he lived before he went to jail. It was the first house that he ever purchases, and it was here that his children were born. The compact house is full of pictures, awards, commendations, and framed letters honoring Mandela. There were only three rooms in the house and thinking about how Mandela lived here in this tiny space while being a lawyer, while fighting for South African equality was certainly humbling.

Not his real bed, but a reproduction. Also this small house only had three rooms – two bedrooms and a kitchen/common room.

under this tree, Mandela buried the umbilical cords of his children, per tradition.

We then had lunch at a nearby restaurant – the lunch was buffet style, which the 13 year old loved because she loves a buffet. There was soup, stews, rice dishes, yams, cake, salad. There were even chicken feet, which made me happy. I love eating chicken feet at dim sum, and seeing such a niche food in a foreign country tickled me. We were sitting in the outdoor portion of the restaurants and buskers frequently came by to serenade us, their music loud and rhythmic.

Following lunch we went to the Apartheid Museum, a place of many hard truths. There were so many things that stuck with me from this museum – the entry way where each person was given a ticket that said “White” or “Non-White”, and had to go through the correct door; the walls of pass books (during Apartheid Black people had to carry pass books with them all the time or risk being jailed); There was one exhibit which featured full sized pictures of people viewed from the back, an exercise in realizing that it wasn’t always easy to see the color of someone’s skin, moreover that exhibit was used to describe how people could be “reclassified” on a whim; the interview footage with Mandela; the interview footage with the white leaders who talked about their duty to be the guardians of the Black people – I thought the degree to which they didn’t view Black or Coloured people as equal humans so fascinating – they truly believed that white people were genetically superior and that they were doing God’s work by keeping Black’s separate. All in all we only spent ninety minutes at the Apartheid Museum, but I could have spent half a day there. There was an entire exhibit on Mandela and another one that about reconciliation that I only got to skim.

There were no pictures allowed inside the museum, so these are from the outside and the entry way.

Each pillar represents one of the seven principal of the South African Constitution: **Democracy, equality, reconciliation, diversity, responsibility, respect and freedom**

After the Apartheid Museum we were taken to our hotel where we had a buffet dinner before turning in for the night. (Buffet was kind of a food theme of the trip, which I think is common and makes a lot of sense for tour groups.)

Day Two: Day Two was another history filled day. We started the day with a visit to the Cradle of Humankind, a Unesco World Heritage site where many fossils of ancestral humans were found. We didn’t actually see any remains or archeological sites, but rather visited the museum/ visitor’s on the site. To be honest, the museum was a little run down, with paint chipping and a couple of the interactive exhibits not working. The information, however, was fascinating. I especially liked the hallway that had the timeline of earth on it. The hallway stretched on and on, but the portion where humans were on earth was maybe two feet of space. Apparently we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction. So the world has built up and become extinct five times already. That all gave me a sense of perspective. Surrounding the Cradle of Humanity museum are walking trails – I wish we had had time to go on a walk on these trails because the scenery was beautiful.

After leaving the Cradle of Humanity, we stopped at a mall for lunch on our own. The 13 year old and I picked up some poke bowls and dumplings and boba – always fun to find boba tea in a foreign country! While waiting for our food, I went to pick up a charging cable because I had discovered that I had left mine at home. While I was there I also got a new screen protector for my phone – the store had a fancy machine that custom cut the screen. protectors. I thought that was pretty cool. It was kind of fun to do something so ordinary, like buying a screen protector, in a foreign country.

Our next stop after lunch was Constitution Hill, where South Africa’s Constitutional Court is located. Also on the site is the Old Fort, Number Four Prison, Women’s Prison and Hospital, all of which now is a Museum. The prison was known as the “Robben Island of Johannesburg” because in addition to common law criminals, a lot of political dissidents were imprisoned there, including Mahatma Gandhi. Nelson Mandela was once held in the Hospital. Number Four was where the Black prisoners were held. Touring the museum was very sobering – we got to see the rooms where people were packed past capacity, the courtyard where they ate their meager food, the latrines next to those courtyard, which meant that often bodily waste flowed around their feet while eating. We saw the cells where people were held in solitary confinement. The tour guide told us about the harrowing and traumatizing experiences inflicted on the prisoner by both the prison wardens and other prisoners.

One of the prison cells in which thirty prisoners were crammed.

The Prison yard. The red roof is where prisoners would eat, squatting on the ground. All the way in the back leads to solitary confinement. You can actually go into those cells and see what they were like. The thought of having to live in solitary … well it is a form of torture.

I was struck by the exhibit of blanket sculptures. When the prison was occupied, on Sundays there would be a contest among prisoners to build elaborate blanket sculptures, the prize for the winner would be an additional crust of bread. The exhibit featured blanket sculptures which the museum had made by former prisoners of Number Four. I had always associated blanket sculptures with fancy hotels or cruise ships, but seeing the elaborate creations that these prisoner made, made me think about how our desire to create things of beauty and complexity persisted even in prison.

The next building we saw on Constitution Hill was the Constitutional Court Building, which was opened in 2004. One thing striking about the building was the entry way – tall, and decorated with carvings to represent the principles of the South African Constitution, the doors are the way everyone enters and exits the building, prisoners, judges, lawyers, the public. The guide said that there are no back entrances to the building because the court was built with the idea that everyone is equal so everyone must use the same doors. (I find it a bit of a fire and security hazard that there are NO other doors – perhaps there are no other public entrances?). Inside, we were told a little bit about the history of present day South Africa. South Africa has 12 official languages, and the guide pointed out to us the room where all the interpreters sit. The bricks in the main court were taken from parts of the prison that were torn down, as a reminder of South Africa’s past.

“Constitutional Court” written in 11 of the 12 official languages. The 12th official language is South African Sign Language.

Detail of a section of the intricately carved door.

The main court room. The interpreters sit behind the glass on the fight.

After we left Constitution Hill, the bus dropped us off at a Mall – Mandela Square. I guess they figured a bunch of teens and tweens would really love to spend a spare hour shopping. The mall had many of the same stores you see in America, a lot of them were the high end things. There was also a library and a theatre in Mandela Square, but those were closed so we I didn’t get to go in. The 13 year old and I aren’t huge shoppers, but we do always like to check out grocery stores when we travel; grocery stores are such a great peek ar what a country is like. We bought a bunch of snacks and blueberries too because by this point I was feeling a severe lack of fresh fruit in my life. The blueberries were so sweet and crisp. The 13 year old and I ended up always buying more blueberries whenever we got a chance for the rest of the trip.

This juxtaposition of these two restaurants made me laugh

Some images from things we saw at Checkers, a grocery/ home store – it felt kind of like a Super Walmart:

Then the bus returned us to the hotel and we had dinner at the restaurant next to the hotel. For dessert, I had my first experience with Malva pudding – a South African sponge cake that often has cream poured over it. It has a springy moist texture and is not too sweet. We would come to eat many pieces of Malva pudding in the weeks to come. I am clearly not a food or travel blogger or I would have taken perfectly lit pictures of the Malva pudding so you could almost taste it. But you’ll just have to take my word that it was delicious. Plus, it’s a very humble looking cake, and perhaps not very photogenic.

We returned to our rooms to pack and turn in for the night because the next day we were going to check out of our hotel and head for our next adventure: Kruger National Park and a Safari Lodge!

So that’s part one of South Africa adventures!
Have you ever taken advantage of a layover to see a bonus city? Do you visit grocery stores when traveling? Do you like visiting historic sites when you travel?

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: New things we are trying

Last week was a shorter school week because of the Labor Day holiday. It was also my last week on a reduced contract at work, so it was pretty light work-wise, though there were several union negotiation meetings to attend and lots of other adulting to do. All in all, though, it was a pretty low key week. I got to get some nice cooler weather runs in, the kids went to school, they came home, we had one soccer practice, I got to go on a pirate boat cruise on the Potomac, but other than that, not to much going on, and the weekend was similar. On Saturday, we had a 9:30am soccer game for the 8 year old, auditions for the 8 and 13 year old. After the auditions, we celebrated by sitting outside and eating the frozen treats that the Husband had bought at the nearby food coop. We were originally going to go out to get chais and horchatas from a local coffee shop, but the ice cream was a cheaper option and just as festive.

Saturday evening we went to visit my friend in Southern Maryland, where the kids had a chance for one last swim in a pool. It was probably a little on the chilly side for the pool, but the kids’ didn’t mind. I floated on an tube for maybe thirty minutes – it was the kind of weather where you wanted to either be in the pool or out, but it was too cold to be constantly switching. My friend is someone I know from work, so it’s always nice when we can hang out oustisde of work. She just rebuilt her deck by herself, and it’s amazing.

Sunday my cousin came for a visit and we just hung out around the house. We watched the US Open Men’s Final. I’ve never really watched tennis before, and I don’t know the rules, or whom to root for, but I do enjoy watching that ball go back and forth and back and forth. Also, I was unfamiliar with the tradition of the Grand Slam winners and losers making speeches at the trophy ceremony and afterwards became fascinated with this tradition. It seems so bonkers to me that the players play their hearts out for three hours, experience crushing defeat or thrilling victory, and then immediately after are expected to coherently speak to millions of people? And for a lot of them, English isn’t even their first language. Despite all that, the Grand Slam trophy speeches seem like an appropriately elegant part of a sport that I do think is very glamorous.

New Things For This School Year:
September always brings some shifts to schedules, routines, and habits what with the new school year starting and kids going to new schools, new grades, new activities. I once made a chart, and from now until the 5 year old goes to high school in nine years, we‘ll have only two years where September does not bring a new school for someone. The other seven years will always have a transition to a new school for at least one kid. So September always seems like a natural time to think about systems and routines and try something new. Here are some things we’re trying this fall:

A new shoe rack/ foyer/ landing strip set up – Our foyer is a mess of shoes and backpacks and tote bags and what not. We were constantly tripping over things in walkways or kicking things down the stairs, losing keys and single shoes and IDs and bills. We started looking for solutions for a more efficient drop zone, where we could keep the shoes and back packs in a more organized way but also have place for incoming mail and our keys and ids. The Husband found a really cool shoe rack on Etsy and we had our handyman stain it to match our front door. The rack has transformed our foyer. (So far. It’s only been two weeks…)

Backpacks are on the coat tree on the right. My messy drop bin is out of sight on the left.

Flow improvements:
-Everyone has a shelf for their most used shoes, so they are no longer sprawled across the entry way. We will still use the boot mats for boots, and shoes that aren’t worn regularly stay in the coat closet, but everything else goes on the shoe rack. There are 4 shelves for shoes and space underneath, so everyone’s shoes seem to fit while taking up a smaller footprint. yay for vertical storage.
-Moving the paper recycle bin next to the shoe rack so that the junk mail goes right into the bin and the important mail goes into the mail bin.
-Having the mail bin and the key bin to the top level of the shoe rack. These used to live on a bench, and it was always kind of awkward to get to them.
-A charging station. We are using one of the top cubbies as a charging station. So now, my phone has a “home” when I’m at home. I’m hoping this will lead to less scrolling and less losing of my phone. We’re trying to convince the 13 year old that her phone also needs to charge there, but I don’t know if we’re going to win that one. (That’s a whole other story…)
-backpacks moved from bins to a coat tree, corralling them in a smaller space. We used to have three plastic storage bins in the living room and they became a dumping ground for backpacks and anything else that didn’t have a home. Once a week, the kids would go through their bins and re-set. I love me a good catch all bin, but it was getting out of control. Now the kids’ activity bags and helmets go in their room and just school backpacks are the the foyer hung on the coat tree. We might need to investigate a different coat tree because the current one is a little tall for the kids’ to reach easily. (The 13 year old keeps her backpack in her room.) I still have my little red bin for my tote bags – I’m trying to figure out if there is a more elegant solution for my stuff – I like to be able to dump my things when I walk in the door because often I’m coming in so late and that tends to lead to a bit of clutter. Still pondering here.
All in all, our new foyer/land strip has made life a little less frustrating lately.

Fewer Activities for the Kids/ More evenings at home as a family – This is the activity run down for this fall:

13 year old – basketball workouts (1x a week, plus this year the coach wants people to practice on their own at least ten minutes a day. The 13 year old has been doing this as she waits for the two little to get off their bus), piano lessons, voice lessons, Religious Ed, Swim clinic (starts next month)

8 year old – soccer (1 practice, 1 game a week. He’s still playing the less competitive rec league.), piano.

5 year old – tap classes, Agility classes (this is like ninja warrior courses.)

This is a lot fewer activities than we usually do. One thing that we dropped for the fall is skating for the 5 and 8 year old because the rink is still under repair. We will likely add skating back in November when the rink re-opens. We also aren’t doing after school programming classes or sewing (for the 8 year old) or gymnastics (for the 5 year old) this fall. The 13 year old is auditioning for the school play, so that might be another activity back on the plate, although rehearsals are right after school, so it’s pretty hands off for us. The 13 year old and the 8 year old both auditioned for the children’s chorus of the Holiday opera I’m working on, so we’re waiting for those results, though those rehearsals don’t start until November.

Being light on activities is a bit of a shift for us. Usually I try to sign up the kids for activities when my work load is lighter because then we have two parents on hand to split driving and home duties. But this fall, we decided to try something different and keep the schedule a little lighter. Each kid still has one active activity and one artistic activity, though. I feel bad because skating, programming, sewing and gymnastics are things that the kids really love to do. I’m reminding myself that these activities all have short sessions and rolling enrollment, so we can sign them up for sessions later in the year too. Taking the fall off from an activity isn’t going to stunt their development in that interest or put them “behind”. Whatever that means. I do think it gets trickier when kids get older and start to get more serious about interests and require more commitment, but for now I think the stakes are not as high for the 5 year old and the 8 year old, and we don’t have to keep up with anything. Plus the kids love activities, but they also love just hanging out at home, reading books, playing outside, and getting into trouble.

I have to say, the pulling back on activities has actually been quite lovely. We’re not constantly rushing around on weekday evenings to eat dinner and get someone somewhere. We all have been cleaning up after dinner together, and then having family reading time, or family game time. Same thing on weekend – we have time to hang out together and kind of just do… well, I was going to say “nothing”, but reading books and noodling on the piano and playing board games and going on evening walks and having dance parties while doing the dishes and putting away laundry in a timely manner – these are all something.

Another thing that I think benefits from the lighter activity schedule is something that came up at Back to School Night – The coordinator of the French Immersion program said is that our kids really need time to decompress after school because they’re brains are working overtime being in a non-English school environment. I’m sure all kids need that space after school, but I guess I hadn’t really thought of the added burden of being in an immersion environment before. Anyhow, I’m really enjoying the less frenetic paces of our afternoons and evenings. I don’t know how long we will keep it up, but it does make for a nice soft start for the school year.

I’m going to give a shout out to our new favorite game, Dixit. It’s kind of like a combination of the Dictionary Game and Code Names – there are picture cards and one person says a word or phrase to describe one of their cards, then everyone puts in a card that might also be described by that word or phrase and everyone else has to guess which is the original card. Dixit works really well for our family because you don’t have to be able to read to play it. I also took a page out of Lauren’s book and instituted a rule that the winner cleans up after the game. I don’t know if it’s the rule or if the kids are getting better at not winning, but there have been fewer meltdowns when we have family game night now.

The 13 year old making dinner once a week – We’ve put the 13 year old in charge of making dinner once a week. She’s made dinner a few times, but not regularly. She’s able to make Mac and cheese (out of a box), breakfast sandwiches, pasta and meat balls, and oven fried chicken. I thought this was a good time for her to start expanding her skills by being regularly responsible for dinner, from planning to putting things on the grocery list to cooking. Last week, she made roasted salmon with potatoes and chimichurri sauce, and steamed green beans. I was in the kitchen talking her through every step of the way, but almost all the hands on stuff she did herself. I have this dream that eventually each child can be responsible for one night and then the Husband and I will only be responsible for 3 dinners a week (the fourth night is pizza and movie night.)

Labelling the Sheets – I keep the spare sheets in the bedrooms – ie each room has the sheets on the bed and one spare set in the closet. BUT they were kind of just on a shelf, in a jumbled mess. In the little kids’ room, especially, it was annoying because the 5 year old sleeps in the twin top bunk and the 8 year old sleeps in the full bottom bed. So when someone wets the bed at 2am, there is a lot of night time cursing and muttering as I pull out wrong sheet set after wrong sheet set. Well, I was determined to fix this and on our last trip to Ikea, I found these zip up storage bags. Now, each size of sheets has it’s own storage bag, AND I got out the label maker and labelled the bags. I love my label maker.

The new closer bus stop- I know this is the third week in a row I’ve mentioned the new bus stop, but it’s been such amazing shift for our routine. The 13 year old gets to shoot some hoops while waiting for the bus, the kids can have 15-30 minutes to play before coming home, and I get to walk down to meet them. Also it’s the first stop of the bus, so less likely to be delayed.

Well, those are some things that are making life a little less chaotic right now. Of course, I don’t know how things will be when I go back into rehearsal, but that is about a month away…

Grateful For:
-Little Free Libraries. There are a couple of Little Free Libraries that we pass by regularly that have some really desirable books. I’ve been amassing a collection. It might be a bit of a problem….

-That the kids are old enough to sort of clean the kitchen after dinner.

-That I learned how to touch type. I was painfully watching my kids hunt and peck the other day, and I had two thoughts – 1) how can the school them all Chromebooks and not teach them to touch type? And 2) I’m sure glad I can touch type so that I can type efficiently and without looking at my hands.

-Beautiful blue skies and fluffy clouds.

-leftovers for an easy dinner, plus more in the freezer for the future when life gets busy again.

-Bodies of water – the Potomac, the Chesapeake Bay, pools. There is something so relaxing about being on the water.

Looking Forward To:

-New glasses. I’d gotten glasses earlier this year and I was having a lot of trouble reading with them. They are progressives, but my last pair was too, so I couldn’t understand why everything I tried to read was blurry. I made and appointment for a re-check and the optomitrist determined that the part of the lenses that I am supposed to read through was too low. So a new pair of glasses are coming in a few weeks! I also ordered a new pair of sunglasses while I was there since my last pair is five years old and the lenses are quite scratched. I’m looking forward to being able to read text clearly again.

-Another new thing coming my way – a new laptop. If you remember my laptop died during tech week of my last show. The Husband has ordered me a new one and I’m excited to set it up and get to work. The old laptop top was at least five or six years old, which seems like it should last longer than that…?

-Tap dancing lessons!!!! I am so super excited for this one. The parent child tap lessons I signed up for start this week. I ordered a pair of tap shoes and they just arrived and I immediately tried them on and tapped around the house. I had zero clue what I was doing, but there is something so very satisfying about that tap tap tap sound.

-Starting the high school choice process with the 13 year old. Where we live, 8th graders can lottery into any one of 5 high schools in our general area and September/October is when all the schools have open houses and you can see what different programs are offered. If you home school is your first choice, you automatically get in. Though I just found out, if you don’t submit a form, you don’t necessarily get into your home school. I can’t even think about what the spreadsheets and what nots are for determining results. So okay, I’m not “looking forward” to this in the “can’t wait, I’m so excited!!!!” kind of way. It’s more like, “I have no idea what this process is like and I am eager for more information.” This is another reason I’m glad we pulled back on activities this Fall – there is at least one open house a week for the next four weeks.

-Chorus rehearsals. Work is slowly starting back up and the first big things I have to do are run chorus music rehearsals. These are the rehearsals where the chorus learns their music. It means I’ll be working evenings again, which is kind of a bummer, but I’m looking forward to seeing many familiar faces again.

What we ate– After a super busy summer, I’m really loving being able to dive into cooking dinner again, and having the time to sit and eat together as a family. (Another plus of less busy evenings.) Although now that I look at the week, I didn’t actually cook dinner all that much….

Tuesday: Pulled pork and coleslaw tacos. The pulled pork and coleslaw was leftover from the Husband’s smoking endeavor the day before.

Wednesday: I had pizza on a pirate ship. The rest of the family had breakfast sandwiches.

Thursday: Roasted Salmon and potatoes with chimichurri sauce and steamed green beans. This was the 13 year old’s night of cooking.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Glee. Because the 8 year old has soccer practice on Friday nights, we might go back to watching episodes of tv rather than a whole movie on Friday nights. Or maybe we’ll just watch shorter movies? TBD.

Saturday: Dinner at our friend’s house- she had a huge food spread – falafel and sausage and veggies and fruit. I brought two peach cobblers – a cardamon cobbler and a ginger buttermilk cobbler.

Sunday: Curry shrimp with peppers and cabbage, served with rice. This was a quick thrown together dinner from the cookbook Make This Tonight that I had borrowed from the library then lost and so I paid for it, but then we found the cook book in, of all places, the toy room closet (I’m a little salty about that – it’s a bit of a black hole) and so just decided to keep it. The recipes are pretty simple and straightforward, which is good for weeknight cooking. This curry shrimp was basically toss shrimp in curry powder, sauté peppers and onions (I added the cabbage myself), throw in shrimp and cook until they are done. Add more curry powder. Eat with rice.

Hope everyone had a lovely week – I feel like I’m posting a little later in the week than normal and the weekend is already here! The weekend is kind of packed for us, but all good things, I hope.

Any changes to systems or routines lately? Have you ever tap danced? What is your entry way/ landing strip like? Does your house have a black hole? What should the 13 year old learn to make next for dinner? Anyone else enjoy watching tennis speeches?

Books Read, August 2024

I really enjoyed reading in August, and managed to read more than I do most months. Lately, I’m trying to have dedicated reading time. Yes, I still always have a book (or four) on Libby to pull out when I’m standing in line or waiting for something, but I’ve realized that for me, reading breeds reading; the more uninterrupted reading time I have, the more I enjoy books. And in turn, the more I enjoy reading books, the more I want to read books and the more likely I’ll reach for a book when I have pockets of time.

Not getting interrupted allows me to get into the flow of the story and remember details. There are books that are good adventures, propulsive plots of which I don’t have to remember all the details – these often make good audiobooks for me and I can tune in or out but still get the gist of the story. But a books that a rich in detail and character, books that I like to savor and think about – these books for me benefit from having uninterrupted reading time. I’ve read a few books this year that I’ve really liked, and I think I would have liked them even better if I had gotten to read them in more concentrated chunks, if I had been allowed to sink into them more. Not necessarily in one sitting – I don’t by any means read that fast – but maybe twenty or thirty minutes at a time.

When I only get to read here and there, in the grocery line, or waiting for pick up, or when I’m constantly interrupted by sibling squabbles – I find I don’t connect with what I’m reading as much. I think some of it is an attention span thing- I just get out of practice of concentrating for longer than a few minutes at a time. Maybe, also, I don’t let myself get too invested because I know I will only get to read a small chunk? Perhaps it’s like with any hobby – doing it in an unhurried manner, giving an activity your time and attention allows savoring and makes it more fulfilling. Investing in something you enjoy means not just investing money but also investing time. Anyhow, I’m trying to invest more of my time to uninterrupted reading so that reading may beget more reading. Because books are really awesome.

Anyhow, on to August Books:

Swept Away by Beth O’Leary read by Conor Swindells and Rebekah Hinds: This novel tells about a one night stand on a house boat that becomes a twelve day stand when the boat is swept out to sea. I really enjoyed this book – the characters were smart, with just enough baggage to be interesting, but no so much that it weighed down the story. I enjoyed following the perils and adventures as Zeke and Lexi worked together to survive with dwindling food, no cell service, and no power. There is also a seagull that figures prominently. There is some typical romance novel third act silliness, but not silly enough to bother me. The audiobook narrators were fantastic and full of personality.

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good – This novel by a British Columbia author of Cree and French Canadian heritage tells the interconnected stories of five teenagers who struggle to rebuild their lives after leaving an Indian residential school in British Columbia. I thought these were important stories to tell and that each character has an interesting arc – the stories are heartbreaking and at the same time filled with little triumphs. However, I didn’t enjoy the writing. I thought the prose was very stolid and plain, almost stilted, and the structure of the book was a little confusing at times, jumping back in forth in the timeline. I couldn’t tell if these things were signs of a specific writing technique or a lack of writing technique, but I wanted the writing to sing a bit more than it did.

Knockout by Sarah MacLean – this is the third book in the Hell’s Belle’s series, about a quartet of women out to bring down the scum of high society. I think it’s my favorite so far. Lady Imogen Loveless is an explosives expert. Tommy Peck is a brilliant detective. Of course their paths intersect. I really liked these two protagonists – Imogen was just a bit daffy, but not enough to be annoying, and she was brilliantly smart. Tommy’s working class background is a nice departure in a genre that is often full of dukes and aristocrats. But I will say, when you have a book series centered around a group of very strong willed, independent, ass-kicking women, their heros all kind of start feeling the same. As much as I enjoyed the chemistry and antics of Imogen and Tommy, Tommy had the same “I’m exasperated by your antics and am going to try to come to your rescue all the time,” air that all the other men in the series had so far. But then again, romance novels often thrive on familiar tropes. The writing, as always, is reliably solid and witty and I can’t wait for the fourth book to come out.

The Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki – The Husband recommended this novel – it’s set in the part of Southern California where I grew up and where my parents now live. And a donut store features prominently. I thought this book was fantastic. The plot features so many threads that you wouldn’t think it would work, but it does. There’s the trans teenager running away from home, with just her cheap violin and her wits and courage. There’s the brilliant violin teacher who made a deal with the devil. There are the refugees from another galaxy who run a donut store as it is the key to returning home. There is the potter who is running the family’s violin repair store, a store that has been in their family for generations. There are tangerines. I thought this was a beautiful book, and I want to read it again to sink into all the details – the book is feel good, cozy, smart but also doesn’t shy away from pain and difficult situations. Also when I figured out where the titles came from I gasped in wonder – the writing is pretty beautiful, each word or phrase or image so precise and well suited. Also – Bartok’s sonata for solo violin plays a big part in the book, which the music nerd in me just loved. Science fiction isn’t really a genre I read a lot of, but this one was so grounded in things that I know and love, and the writing was so good, that it felt really accessible to me.

One of my favorite passages was this one, when Lan (the alien captain) and Shizuka (the violin teacher) meet at an Olive Garden:
Lan ate one, [bread stick] then the other. She looked at Shizuka in horror.
“Oh no! I ate your bread stick, too.”
“Don’t worry. They’ll bring more.”
“Really?”
Shisuka tilted her head. “Lan, haven’t you traveled the galaxy? I mean, surely you’ve been to much nice places than an Olive Garden in Cerritos.”
Cerritos is a very Asian, very bland, very functional suburban area in Southern California, near where I grew up. This comment made me laugh.

Or this one, the potter training her son on how to mend a violin:
“Andrew, careful means watch what you are doing. Careful does not mean be indecisive.”

I need to embrace that more.

The Beast Takes a Bride by Julie Anne Long – The latest in her Palace of Rogues series that takes place in a boarding house along the Thames. I didn’t love this book as much as My Season of Scandal, but I did like it a lot. This is a second chance romance between two people who are married, but have been separated for five years because of things that happened on the night they got married. The story of how Alexandra and her husband Magnus get back together is classic Julie Anne Long- well-written angst and longing with an incandescent resolution. That part of the story I really loved. I have a few quibbles though – first of all, the story starts with Alexandra in jail which lent a certain humor and quirkiness to her character that is never really explored. She turns out to be a little dull, which is actually kind of the point of her character, but I wanted her to be a little less dull. Also most of the story is told from her POV, so Magnus remains in large part a mystery, and I kind of miss getting to understand his transformation from the inside out the way that we see Alexandra’s. Also while I love the antics of the Grand Palace on the Thames, it really threw the pacing off in this story. The parts that didn’t feature the main romantic couple were all well written and funny, but I think in past books, the antics meshed more seamlessly with the main love story, and in this one they didn’t. Having said all that though, I thought the story of Alexandra and Magnus was really well crafted and the conflict was thoughtfully laid out. The cover, though, doesn’t really have a lot to do with the book. I think her covers are getting worse and worse as the series goes on.

Tru Biz by Sara Novic – I thought that this novel set in a boarding school for Deaf teenagers was pretty great. First of all, the plot is interespersed with chapters that explain parts of Deaf history and culture. As someone who is unfamiliar with any of that context, it was so eye opening. The sections that talked about the nuances of sign language were fascinating. Also Alexander Graham Bell had so much more going on than just inventing the telephone. The actual story itself was absorbing too – the story tells the story of two students at the school, and the head mistress of the school. Their stories seem very separate at first, but then come together as plot like things happen. There is some very risky teen behavior going on, and some grown up problems involving the complicated world of running a deaf school, and things like cochlear implants. I thought the ending felt a little unresolved, but in the notes at the end, the author says that she left the end a little open because she wanted these characters, these Deaf characters, to live on in the reader’s mind, so that the reader doesn’t just leave them in the book, but takes them, and Deaf culture, out into the world. I really loved that thought and it makes me see unresolved endings in a whole new light.

On my proverbial Night Stand

Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg – still working my way through this biography of Winnie and Nelson Mandela. There is some seriously messed up shit going on that certainly didn’t make it into Nelson Mandela’s autobiography.

Hum in You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais – A ten year old girl and Xhosa widow’s lives come together in the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto uprisings.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett – Curmudgeonly academic goes to a remote Northern Island to research faeries. Breezy and ironic in tone, but moving at a slow pace. Or maybe I’m just reading it at a slow pace?

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, read by Ray Porter – I don’t pretend to understand the science bits, but the human bits are really wonderful.

How was your reading life last month? Are you able to find satisfaction in reading in fits and starts, or do you find you need longer uninterrupted time for reading?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to School, Labor Day Weekend, and Moments not Mine

Beautiful skies and trees at the botanical gardens.

Hello from the other aide of Labor Day Weekend. We’ve turned the calendar to September and I feel like we now begin the new year in earnest- it’s a new school year and a new opera season. New activities beginning!

Sunday felt like the perfect end-of-summer day. We slept in – just late enough to feel luxurious, but not so late as to feel indolent. Which for us is 7:30/8am. Then I decided that I wanted to have special breakfast, so I made waffles. I usually make the buttermilk waffles from King Arthur Flour Baking Companion, only this time the 5 year old wanted me to put rainbow sprinkles in them, and I also made a blueberry waffle. I’d never put add ins in my waffles before, so I didn’t know how it would turn out – they turned out great.

After breakfast, we went to the farmer’s market. I biked with the 8 year old while the Husband and the other two kids took the metro. I was really impressed by the 8 year old – the bike ride is the same one I take to work. It’s about five miles and there is a big hill at the end. I often have to walk my bike up that hill, but the 8 year old put his bike in a low gear and kept pedaling up the hill. He did rest once, but then kept going. I’m loving how much he’s loving his bike. One vent, though, is that right before the big hill, is a stop light so ideally you get a green light and can accelerate through the light on a higher gear and get some momentum up the hill. Only you know those Lime Bikes? They’re those bike share e-bikes that you can find randomly around. Well, someone had left a Lime Bike in the middle of the sidewalk on the other side of the stop light. So we had to stop and any momentum we got coming out of the stop light was lost. I got SO MAD. I might have not too gently pushed the Lime Bike over and dragged it off the sidewalk. Sooooo annoying.

Anyhow, despite that we got to the Farmer’s Market where we bought vegetables (peppers, cucumbers, spinach, potatoes) and peaches and nectarines. There was not a huge peach sale this time, so we did not come home with a $25 crate of peaches. After the market, we all took the metro home. The ride was a little odd because we ran into the 13 year old’s math teacher, which it’s always a little awkward seeing one’s teachers out in the wild.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out in the backyard. The Husband was finally setting up the smoker that he had gotten a few months ago. Setting up the smoker involved cooking two pounds of bacon. “What are we going to do with two lbs of bacon?” I asked the Husband.

Apparently we were just going to eat it. The Husband doesn’t eat bacon, but the other four of us – we polished off that two lbs in less than an hour. It was tasty. No regrets there. Yet.

It was such a nice chill afternoon in the backyard. We planned the 5 year old’s upcoming birthday party. We talked to the 8 year old about some upcoming activity plans. I played a bit of soccer with the 8 year old backyard. I finished a book and flipped through the first few pages of a few options for my next read. I think if you had told me that I was going to spend three hours in my backyard reading and “life-ing”, I would have kind of thought, “What a waste of time. Shouldn’t I go organize my desk or something like that?” But you know what? It was just perfect. I guess this is what people do with weekends when they don’t have to rush off to activities or work.

Oh and then after that, we had a family cuddle session on the 13 year old’s bed. She had put “Family hug” on the calendar during the previous day’s family meeting. The Husband pointed out that we could hug for longer if we were on a bed, so we all piled into her bed and had an hour of cuddle time. Well I guess the Husband, the 13 year old, and I cuddled. The 5 year old and the 8 year old climbed all over us. It wasn’t relaxing, per se, but it was nice bonding time. Then I got up, and made dinner.

After dinner, I took the two little kids to the pool for one final raft night. Our pool closes on Labor Day, and since we had plans for Monday, if we wanted to get one last swim in, Sunday was the day. The pool was a little chilly, but we soon got used to it. Plus we had our inflatable rings, so we just floated along and enjoyed the sky and clouds.

The 8 year old took this picture at the pool because he said the sky was beautiful.

When I look back on Sunday, I think, “I would never have planned a day like that. But it was perfect.”

Which was nice because to be honest, the day before was kind of a disaster. We tried to go find a dresser for the 13 year old, driving all the way to Virginia because that is where the folks on Reddit say the best furniture stores in teh area are. Virginia is terrible to drive to/drive in. We looked at lots of furniture but couldn’t decide on what to get. Turns out we have a fundamental difference in overall vision for the 13 year old’s room, basically the disagreement is piece meal furniture vs. bedroom set. (And the 13 year old didn’t really care which way to go.) Most of our furniture in the house was obtained piecemeal, and one of us thought that maybe if we were going to buy one thing for the 13 year old’s room, we should buy a whole set since she didn’t really have a bed and was sleeping on a futon mattress. We spent thirty minutes in the furniture store disagreeing about set vs. piecemeal and finally left without buying anything.

We then tried to go to the really cool and tasty Vietnamese shopping center for lunch, but the parking lot was kind of a madhouse so we abandoned that. People in the van got hungry, then cranky so we ended up at a Laotian restaurant, though that required driving through more confusing traffic patterns. The GPS said it was 0.5 miles away. It was only a short distance away in miles, but it was miles in frustration. So all in all, not a great excursion. (But the food was really good – the crispy tofu lettuce wraps were divine.) I think we are scarred and likely won’t be going deep into the Virginia suburbs again for a long long long long time. (Apologies to any Virginia readers. I’m sure you feel the same way about driving in Maryland.)

All to say, after that disaster of a half day on Saturday, Sunday was everything I needed a long weekend day to be.

Labor Day Monday was our annual trip to the Renaissance Festival. The weather was gorgeous – the past couple of years it has been unbearably hot on Labor Day weekend, which makes the Ren Faire a little bit harder to navigate. But this year, the weather was high 70s, sunny with a breeze, and downright cool in the shade. That might account for the high volume of people going. The traffic was terrible. It usually takes us 40-50 minutes to get to the Faire. This year it took us 90 minutes. I’ve never seen it that bad. So we didn’t get through the gates until nearly 11:00am. (Our friends who were meeting us there took three hours to get there and they only live two miles from us.) I was probably the only one worried about not getting to the Faire right when it opened. The kids were happy in a slow moving van as long as they could put on KPop Demon Hunters and Broadway Show Tunes and sing along at the top of their lungs. I might have joined in.

Once we got to Revel Grove itself, we had a great time. The Ren Faire is such a multi-faceted event. You have all the shows and entertainment, you have the shopping, the eating, there’s the pirate ship playground, and games, and you also have the fun pageantry and people watching. It’s kind of like being in the middle of a parade, what with all the costumes that people were wearing. My favorite costumes I saw this year were the two people dressed up as Galinda and Elphaba, and also a stately older lady in this beautiful golden brocade gown with a headdress that had protruding spikes, as if she were the sun. It was pretty spectacular. The 13 year old’s favorite costume was the guy we saw dressed as Waldo from “Where’s Waldo”.

We saw all the familiar shows, including a 20 minute Macbeth. We saw the jousting. We ate turkey legs and other fried food. We let the kids play at the playground. The kids went through the maze and shot toy crossbows. The 5 year old was finally old enough to do the climbing wall, which she climbed with such ease. Next year she will have to do the “Medium hard” wall, I think. We listened to bagpipes and drums, the music so loud and rhythmic that you could feel the benches vibrate and the music under your skin. Going to the Ren Faire feels so familiar – I feel like we have a good routine and pace for how we tackle the day. I almost worry that we are in a Rem Faire rut, and I think next year we should go see at least a few new to us Acts and maybe try some new foods. I’ve started keeping a list of foods that go over like a lead balloon – so far on the list are the fried green beans (meh, so very much meh) and the apple dumplings (waaay too messy to eat while standing up or taking in a show.)

Leading up to Labor Day, though, was the first week of school. Monday was a “Transition Day” for kindergarteners (also 6th and 9th graders), so the older two kids were off school. After walking the 5 year old to school, we went to the Botanical Gardens and met up with some friends for a walk. In the afternoon, the 13 year old then had a voice lesson via Zoom, and we went to the 8 year old’s open house. The 13 year old did not have an open house. I guess at a certain point, they just expect you to show up at school and figure it out.

Then on Tuesday, everyone went back to school. Yay! I am so excited for the new school year, the new teachers, the new friends, and new routines. Everyone seemed to have a good first week of school. The 5 year old is excited to go every day, though she says they sit a lot. The 8 year old seems to like his teacher and the 13 year old – well, I think she likes the independence that she has at school.

Obligatory First Day of School picture. I don’t do first day signs though I love the idea. The 13 year old leaves for school an hour and half before the other two so I was lucky just to have everyone dressed to be in a first day picture together.

Fun fact – the 5 year old wore the same dress that her big sister wore to her first day of kindergarten. We even sort of recreated the picture from eight years ago:

I was thinking recently about how life with little kids seemed/ seems interminable for me. I look at the 5 year old and, also to some extent the 8 year old and think, “How are you still so young? It seems as if you’ve been little forever.” I wouldn’t wish the years away, but it does seem as if we’ve been in the “parenting littles” phase for such. a. long. time.

But, at the opposite end, with the 13 year old, time is flying. I am so acutely aware of (and completely unprepared for) the fact that she will go to high school next year; that two year (and change) from now she will be learning how to drive; that the years we have with her at home are fewer and fewer. We now have more years behind us than in front of us with her at home. (Unless she lives at home for college, which is actually a very real possibility. But that’s a future thing…)

Time passes simultaneously quickly and slowly when I look at my children. Sometimes it feels as if I’m living on two different timelines, parallel yet not quite concurrent. I was thinking that this slight dissonance is because as kids grow older, I’m getting fewer and fewer pieces of them. When kids are little, they are all ours – there is so much of them, a surfeit of responsibility, care, attention. When they are first born, they are with us 24/7. And even in the early years, they are either at school/daycare or with a parent. We take them to school, we feed them their meals, we take them to activities, even participating in those activities with them. Time with them moves slowly because there is so much of it.

But as they grow older and need us less and less, they also give us less and less. The 13 year old still wants time to cuddle and watch New Girl, but these days she also wants time alone. And coupled with all the time she spends at school, at basketball, at various lessons and activities, most of which she gets herself to and from – well, my time with her is just pockets. There is less of it – which is why, I think time with her goes much faster; there is just so little of it on a day to day basis. There’s a sense of time scarcity with the 13 year old that I don’t have with the younger kids. It’s not just that the years are fewer, but also that the moments are fewer. And on top that, the moments are no longer mine.

So here’s to savoring those moments I do get to share with her, and also letting her have her own moments as she becomes her own person.

Grateful For:

– Summer evenings with just the right amount of chill and light to remind me to savor the moments before winter is upon us.

-The Lenten Book Group and my friend who invited me to join two years ago. We had a meeting last week where we talked about Mary and Martha, and the Good Samaritan. I’ve always, to be quite honest, been bothered by the story of Mary and Martha. (Cliff Notes: Jesus comes to teach at Martha’s house and her sister Mary sits at his feet and listens while Martha works to prepare the house, serve the food, etc. Martha gets resentful and asks Jesus to make Mary help her, but Jesus says that what Mary is doing is important too.) We had a great discussion about actions being the manifestation of love, but also how sometimes just putting things down and listening is important too.

-School bus drivers, teachers, principals, and school administrators. Bless them all.

-A new bus route. We have switched the two elementary school kids to a different afternoon bus route that drops the kids by 4:15pm to a stop that is next to a park and walking distance from home. This bus was always an option, but in past years it didn’t drop off until close to 5pm. They’ve streamlined the bus routes this year, and while some parents are upset, it works out better for us. I’ll miss our friends at the old bus stop, but this new stop is so much better for life – the kids get off the bus sooner, and I can even can go to the playground for 20 minutes and still get home in time to make dinner. Also, the 13 year old can go down to the bus stop and shoot baskets while waiting for the kids and then walk them home. Anything we can do to minimize time in the car is a plus for me.

-Metro workers. On the train home from the Farmer’s Market, a man on our train car collapsed out of his seat. I went over to see if he needed help and he seemed a little incoherent, which was a little concerning. We had to get off at the next stop, so I told the Metro conductor, and I think he called for help because a police car and fire truck pulled up as we were leaving the station. I’m so grateful that there are people to help in those situations because I really felt out of my depths.

– The plethora of Ethiopian markets nearby where I can readily get injera. I had some time to kill between errands one day and realized I was in walking distance of two Ethiopian stores, so I stopped by one to pick up some injera. I love the stuff and can eat a whole package by myself. I hear it’s complicated to make, so I’m am grateful I don’t have to make it myself.

-This belt bag that I got as a hand me down from my cousin. I never thought I’d be a belt bag person, but it perfectly fits my phone, wallet, keys, and sunglasses, which makes it so handy when I’m out on my bike or am just running a quick errand, or to stuff in the swim bag. Hand me downs for the win!

Looking forward to:
-going to our friend’s house out in Southern Maryland. She’s closing her pool for the season soon and invited us up for one last swim. I’ll be making that peach cobbler again.

-Lunch and happy hours with friends. I tend to fill my social calendar up when I’m not working because my evenings and weekends get very packed when I am working. So I have lots of meet ups scheduled in the next couple of weeks.

-Riding bikes to school. This is a “Looking forward to” that is at least a year out. The 8 year old and I rode our bikes to his 3rd grade open house. It took just 15 minutes to get to school (though it took 8 minutes to find a bike rack and lock up the bikes…), and there is a trail almost all the way there. There is one major road to cross, but it has a traffic light there and lots of other foot traffic, so it’s not dangerous. I would feel pretty safe letting the kids ride their bikes the 2.3 miles to school. Right now, the limiting factor is the 5 year old doesn’t ride a bike yet, but once she figures it out, I can totally see the two of them biking to school together, and myself going with them sometimes. Their school is actually half way to my work, so it would be a convenient family commute.

-Back to School Night for the Elementary school kids. The middle school BTSN was last week (on the third day of school!) and that one was a lot of fun – we got to follow our 13 year old’s schedule and go from class to class. Being able to walk her paths gave me a lot of insight into how chaotic her days are.

-Fall cooking projects: I’ve decided that I’m going to try to make dosa from scratch this fall. Also I never got around to making Japanese milk bread and that is still on my list. And the 8 year old wants to make tang hulu (Sugar coated strawberries) since he missed out when we made it earlier this summer. I’m kind of leaning into the idea of having some good homemade snacks for when the kids get home from school.

-Reading this book:

Set near Johannesburg, it’s one of the books I had picked up to read while in South Africa, but I ended up not bringing it on the trip. This novel tells the story of a 10 year old white girl and a Xhosa widow whose lives intersect in a tragic way.

What We Ate:

Monday: Tomato and Zucchini Tart and Cucumber Avocado Salad. Really leaning into the summer produce for this meal. The Tart was super simple – pre-made pastry dough, covered with a mixture of cream cheese and mustard blended together, and covered with sliced tomato and zucchini. The cucumber avocado salad, was inspired by Julie, though not the exact of the one she posted.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday! Shrimp and chicken tacos, made on the grill. I had a jar of green salsa of indeterminate origins so I used that to marinate the chicken. The family devoured this. I made 1 lb of shrimp and 2 lbs of chicken and it was all inhaled. I felt bad because we had a friend coming for dinner and she was running late so I fed the kids first and our friend only got two tacos because that’s all that was left. Oh, and for dessert I made peach cobbler, recipe from the NY Times. I’ve never made a peach cobbler before – friends! cobbler is SO fast and easy! And delicious! Will make again. (And I’m going to – see above about visiting our friend in southern Maryland.)

Wednesday: Dinner at Ikea as we went on our mission for a dresser for the 13 year old. The mission was a fail. But the meatballs were tasty.

Thursday: Meera Sodha’s Green Pasta – Trying to use up all the basil in our yard. I really like this pasta – you blend blanched spinach, basil, parsley, lemon juice, silken tofu and nutritional yeast into a creamy savory sauce for pasta. Then you top it with this olive/lemon/olive oil mixture. Well I did – the rest of family doesn’t care for olives. Vegan.

Friday: Pizza (carry out) and Dodge Ball. The 13 year old originally wanted to watch Forest Gump, but then realized it’s actually kind of a downer of a movie plus it’s kind of long, so she picked Dodge Ball instead. Which… I have to say, some of it is still hilarious (“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!”), but a lot of it is sexist, homo-phobic, body-shaming frat boy humor that hasn’t aged well for me. The kids liked it, but I gave a lot of disclaimers as we went along.

Saturday: The little kids and I went to a birthday party where there was pizza, snacks, and a cookie cake. The Husband and 13 year old went out for cheesesteaks. I was still hungry when I came home so I had angel hair pasta with the leftover olive oil/lemon/olive mixture from Thursday night.

Sunday: Sweet and sour eggplant with garlic chips, served with rice. Recipe from NY Times Cooking. Easy stir fry with the sweetest, silkiest Japanese Eggplant from the farmer’s market. I also added green beans and carrots since I realized that recipes that say “2-4 servings” won’t feed our family. Vegan.

Monday: Smoked pork sandwiches with Coleslaw. The Husband’s first smoking project was a delicious success. I’m not sure if he will become one of those guys who tries to smoke everything and spends all weekend with his smoker. From what he described to me, smoking meat is a combination of leisurely hands off and attending to the temperature of the smoker as if it were a colicky baby.

Hope you all have a lovely start to September.

What parts of life seem interminable to you? What parts seem to go quickly? Are you team furniture set or team piecemeal furniture? Any fun cooking projects lately? Have you ever made dosa from scratch? Any favorite movies from your youth that haven’t aged well for you?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Last week of summer!

This past week, we bought school supplies, squeezed in more pool time, one kid had a cavity filled, met the Husband for lunch (fried chicken and Boba!) . I also had some work meetings. We went to the Kindergarten Open House for the 5 year old. I was really proud of the 8 year old for introducing his little sister to the teachers. They are both in a French Immersion program, so the teachers aren’t allowed to speak English in front of the students. Some teacher even pretend that they don’t understand English. I could have introduced the 5 year old to the teacher myself, but I figured the 8 year old hadn’t spoken French all summer, so he could stand to start up again.

On Saturday, we took the kids to the K-Pop Demon Hunters sing1a-long in the movie theatres. Since we don’t have Netflix, I hadn’t actually seen the movie, even though we listen to the soundtrack all. the. time. – in the car, during breakfast, at clean up time… just whenever. It first came into our lives because the 8 year old had watched it at Taiwan Camp, and asked to listen to the music non stop. Then when the family was in Indiana the friend they stayed with put it on for them to watch. The kids know all the words, they make up dance numbers. They even took my phone last week while I was on a call and filmed music videos. Afterwards I found all the black clothing in the house strewn across the living room. Their dedication to the project was admirable. The videos involved costumes, props, choreography and dizzying film work. I was actually quite impressed. (Also happy that they were able to amuse themselves while I was on a two hour call.) Obsessed. They are all obsessed.

We didn’t tell the kids that we were going to the Sing-a-long, just that we had a “surprise outing”. They kept asking questions about the activity, as if we were playing a never ending round of twenty questions – “Does it involve food?” “Is it outside?” “Do I have to get dressed up?” “Does it involve food?” “Do I need to bring money?” “Does it involve food?” . Eventually we said that we weren’t answering any more questions.

As we were riding the escalator to the movie theatre, a couple was coming down on the opposite side; he was wearing a top hat and cloak, and she was wearing a shiny white mini-skirt and halter top. As soon as the 13 year old saw that, her eyes got really big and she got this huge grin on her face. “Are we going to the sing-a-long?” she whispered to us. I don’t think I’ll ever be the parent that surprised their kids with a trip to Disney, but I have to admit, seeing the joy and realization creep across the kids face when they realize they’re going somewhere fun is priceless.

For those who haven’t experienced it yet, K-Pop Demon Hunters is a Netflix movie about a K-Pop band that fights Demons, saving the world through their music. There is angst and intrigue, romance and fight sequences. I found the movie incredibly entertaining and satisfying to watch. After listening to the music on repeat for the past six weeks, seeing them in context made me realize that they are not just songs, but cleverly propel the story. This movie is as much a movie musical as any of the Disney classics. It’s sentimental and big hearted and not-subtle.

But also – there is something about taking my kids to see a movie where the protagonists are all Asian, and the whole movie is very much steeped in Korean culture. For one, the food scenes were so amazingly familiar – granted Korean food is very different from Taiwanese food, but seeing people eat noodles with chopsticks and then all the snacks… these things are part of the food culture I grew up with. I’ve written here before about representation in media and I’m always struck that my children are growing up in a world where they see the non-White part of their heritage reflected in mainstream media. I didn’t have that growing up, and I’m so glad they do.

Everyone had a great time, singing along and bopping. There was one funny thing that happened, though – before the movie started, this group of ten or so kids and grown ups came in, and many of them had balloons. Well during the last third of the movie, someone let go of their balloon, and it floated into the light of the projector. The shadow of the balloon string ended up dangling in the picture of the rest of the movie. It looked like the characters all had the same hair curl in every frame and was mildly distracting. I was alternately annoyed and amused. It didn’t ruin the fun, though.

Sunday, we went to the Farmer’s market for lunch and produce. The two older kids and the Husband biked the 5 miles there while the 5 year old and I took the metro to meet them. The plan was for all of us to metro back after having a special drink at one of our favorite coffee shops. (The 13 year old loves their house made chai lattes, and having one was on her summer bucket list.) At the farmer’s market, I picked up some beautiful Japanese eggplants, spinach, nectarines, and peaches. At one point I was checking out at one stand and noticed that there was a sign that said “Box of peaches $25”. Well that’s irresistible to me. Never mind that we had metro-ed to the Farmer’s market. I debated – can I get that home? I just canned a whole crate of peaches, do I need more? (the answer is always YES) – Then the Husband said, “You know you want to. We’ll get it home.” The thirteen year old helped me carry a little of the way, but she was also walking her bike, so I ended up carrying the box most of the way home. It was worth it. I don’t think I’m up for more canning, so I froze some and I think I’ll do some baking. That is if there are any left come this weekend. The kids go through peaches like termites.

The rest of the day was taken up by a pool party birthday for the 5 year old, and then I met up with some friends in DC for dinner. It was eerily quiet at the restaurant. But perhaps it was because it was 6pm on a Sunday night? Perhaps it’s because the National Guard is here. I mean they weren’t in the neighborhood we were in, but there is a general sense of tense gloom. It’s been really disheartening these days. I don’t have to go into DC very often, so the added military presence is not something I’m faced with every day – I’m sure it’s a little alarming for people for whom it’s a daily sight.

Other things I’m pondering lately:

-Trees – I’ve been painting trees lately, watching tutorials and then trying to copy them. I’ve noticed that after watching tutorials and hearing what the painters say about what they are trying to capture in a tree, I look at trees differently. Like I’ll see how the light comes through the leaves or something and think, “Oh! That’s why the painter uses yellow there!” It seems a little backwards to notice the light after learning how to paint it, though. Sometimes when the kids and I have just a half hour or so to kill, I’ll get the paints out and it’s a very soothing way to pass the time. (until the kids start mixing the colours too much and I have to bite my tongue and just let them….)

-Minor victory – The kids and I cleaned up the toy room that was kind of a disastrous explosion of toys. I basically pushed everything into the center of the room, put the empty bins beside the pile and told them to sort things back into their bins. We managed to clean it all up in two twenty five minute sessions, interspersed with ten minute popsicle breaks. I guess phrasing it as “sorting” rather than “cleaning” might have kept the whining down? I don’t know. But I’ve never been that successful at getting them to clean the toy room.

-there was rambutan and lychee and dragon fruit at Hmart last week! I’m always excited when the uncommon (to America) fruit is at HMart.

-answering the question of “What to do with that half can of condensed milk?” I had made peach popsicles the other day (Peaches, yogurt, condensed milk in the blender and freeze), and had half a can of condensed milk left. The Husband found this recipe – Cornflake Caramel Squares. It’s kind of a twist on Millionaire Shortbread. The Cornflakes are incorporated into a shortbread crust along with some shredded coconut. Then the half tin of condensed milk is used to make a caramel that is spread over top. Then top it with a layer of chocolate. It was tasty. (I’m also really intrigued by the idea of the website: Traybakes & More. I’d never heard of the concept of a tray bake – I guess a savory one would be a casserole and a sweet one would be like a bar cookie/ brownie type thing? But the recipes look less fussy – more like mix and dump and bake. Anyhow, I would like there to be more traybakes in my life. The sweet kind. I’m not a huge fan of casseroles.)

-Family Task Management- any suggestions? One struggle I’m having right now is keeping track of all the family to do items. The Husband and I tend to text or email each other when something comes up that we need the other to take care of – change the credit card on an account, fill out paperwork, pick up toilet paper and even bigger stuff like finalize the tenant’s lease, look into plane tickets for something, FSA receipts- but sometimes I lose track of the text or email before I complete the item. So I’m trying to figure out a system that these things don’t get lost in the shuffle. I really want to set up a system that we can have in place once I start back in rehearsal because there are long stretches when we are like ships in the night since I work so late and he goes to work so early in the morning. I guess what we need is:
– ability for both of us to add tasks (he’s Android, I’m iPhone)
– Simple to use.
– ability to check off tasks when complete, not just delete
– if there’s a way to get a notification when a task is added? Otherwise we’d be texting “I added something to the list” back and forth. Trying to streamline the process
-Some day will want to share with the kids, so might want to be able to make different lists.
-not a calendar. We already use Google Calendar for events.
-not really interested in a paid system (yet)
I feel like this is into Parents as CEO territory, but if anyone wants to share how they manage and share tasks with another person, I’m all ears!

Grateful For:

-Cooler weather. The weather has dipped into something practically fall-like last week. It was almost too cold to go to the pool, but we did manage a few “last hurrah of summer” swims.

-That the 13 year old made lunch for her siblings while I was in a Zoom meeting. AND they even cleaned up.

-College Friendships that still are strong. Last week, I got to meet up with a college friend, E, who was nearby to visit family. The kids and I drove up to meet her and we had Indian food and then went to a park where my friend and I walked while the little kids played. Then on Sunday E and my friend K met up for dinner (see above) – the three of us had met in college and all were heavily involved in music. E actually played the piano for my senior year recital. There is something so great about having friends who have shared formative years with me, and being able to reflect on that together, but also being able to talk about today and the future and who we are and want to be.

-That I don’t have to work on the weekends for the next six weeks or so. October through December will be very busy for me work-wise, so I’m glad I have weekends free for the next little bit.

-Butterflies for adding a flash of color and beauty to the world.

-Our Realtor who offered us some advice about a tricky tenant situation. He’s super pragmatic and chill and has been managing properties for a long time, and he gave us some good perspective on a situation we were having with the house we rent out. I’m always grateful for his advice and expertise and that he still takes our call even though we last bought a house from him five years ago.

-Collective bargaining. Unions are important. The right to form and join a union is also important.

Looking Forward To:
-Soccer season has started. The 8 year old is just playing in the rec league, so he has just one practice a week + 1 game.

-A return to routines once school starts. At one of our family meetings we talked about “expectations” for the school year and one of them was a regular pick up time and chores for the kids. We’ll see if pick up time can be come a routine, but I’m ready for the house to look less like a den of wild animals live here. (I mean – everyone was home all the time last week, so yeah, in a way, it was like a pack of wolves had taken over.)

-Having just ONE pick up to deal with. And ONE school calendar. The thirteen year old walks to and from school, so with the 5 year old entering kindergarten, she now rides the bus home with her brother, so we have one pick up to do. Also – because they are in an language immersion program, there are special bus routes and I just realized that this year there is one bus route that drops off walking distance from our house. So we are going to try that new bus route and see how it goes. (The old bus, which we’ll still take in the morning, picks up about 1.5 miles from us, so not a terrible distance, but still requires a car ride.)

-Lunch with mom friends. The mom’s group I joined when the 3rd kid was born kind of got a new breath of energy this month as almost all our babies all all going to kindergarten this fall. So we’re having a Friday lunch date.

-this book just came off my holds. It seems quirky and fun:

What We Ate:

Monday: Kale and Tomato Saag from Meera Sodha’s East. I didn’t have paneer (or the energy to make it) so we had it with tofu. Served with paratha, which I found in the frozen section of HMart. Vegan

Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos

Wednesday: Teriyaki Tofu w/ rice and steamed broccoli from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone. A reliable hit. Vegan.

Thursday: Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce and Garlic Bread. I had some tomatoes our friend had given us from their CSA – so I roasted them with lots of garlic and Basil and mashed into a sauce. We ate it with angel hair pasta and I made garlic bread. I had forgotten what a great thing angel hair pasta is – it cooks in seconds!

Friday: Pizza and Ever After. It was my turn to pick the movie and I wanted something beautiful, romantic, and warm. Ever After is one of my all time favorite movies. It’s my comfort watch – Drew Barrymore being plucky, Dougary Scott giving the prince brooding self discovery, Angelica Huston. Melanie Lensky, before she took the world by storm. Love it so much.

Saturday: Movie theatre popcorn and peanut butter sandwiches when we got home.

Sunday: I went to Happy Hour with my friends (I had oysters, truffle fries, ceviche, and balsamic Brussels sprouts.) The family had dumplings and edamame at home.

Hope you are having a sunshine filled week! The kids have started school (will give a report next week) and already we have a long weekend coming up. We’ll go to the Renaissance Faire! Also hopefully tackle some decluttering and also relax and maybe one last trip to the pool before it closes.

How do you manage family tasks? Give me all the tips! Have you jumped on the KPop Demon Hunters bandwagon yet? Golden is definitely our song of summer here. What would you do with half a can of condensed milk? What are you up to this Labor Day weekend?

Splashy Places

The other day I was at the pool with the two younger kids. It was adult swim so we were in the baby pool.

The baby pool wasn’t too crowded, maybe just two or three other families. I try not to let my kids be too wild in the baby pool because of all the toddlers around, but water does move around and it sometimes goes into kids’ faces. And when it does I often feel annoyed at the kid doing the splashing. How dare they get water on my precious child?!?! And then I want to pull my kids away from the splashing kids.

But this day, my kids were the ones doing the splashing and they happened to splash a little kid, she appeared to be maybe four years old. She gave a little cry of anger and ran to her mom. Immediately I turned to my kids to tell them to stop splashing in the pool, even though they didn’t mean to splash the four year old.

And then I heard the mom of the four year old say to her kid, “I’m sorry you got water in your face; pools are splashy places.”

And it made me stop and realize the deep wisdom of her words. It seems so obvious but sometimes I forget: Pools are splashy.

Often, I want to do everything to prevent my kids from splashing or getting splashed in the pool; I want to move them far away so they won’t get water in their face and experience any discomfort. I want them to have an unblemished pool experience. But I just loved how that mom at the pool didn’t take her kid out of the pool or try to tell her that she shouldn’t have been splashed. She didn’t pretend that the pool was a place where no one would get splashed.

Pools are splashy places. But I’ll be right here with goggles or a towel or hugs or whatever you need to get back out there and play. Pools are splashy places, but they are also places of fun, joy, and bravery.

Pools are splashy. Life is messy. Love can hurt. It’s all just part of coming to the pool, living life, loving someone.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tech/opening/closing; Motivation and Discipline

I’ve made it to the other side of the show. Last week we teched and then had our one and only performance. It’s been an intense week for sure, working until 1:30am two of the nights. The process has been fast and furious – only two days of rehearsal in the theatre before opening. Usually we have four days in the theatre, at least.

Lighting session. The view from Stage Right.

The thing that’s particularly intense about this schedule is that the first rehearsal onstage for the full cast was with orchestra and full costume, wigs, and make-up. Usually the first onstage tech rehearsal is just piano and no costumes, so we can get used to the set, figure out the staging, slowly work through tricky traffic. To have to throw set, costumes, orchestra, light cues at the process the first time most of the cast stepped onstage was a lot. But big shout out to our stage manger, who came up with a plan to keep things moving while stopping and allowing everyone time to work on elements that needed work – firing weapons, fights, offstage singing moments, balance notes, costume changes etc. The one costume change I was really worried about involved the entire 36 person chorus changing from a winter look to a spring look in 1 minute 30 seconds. It’s not a complicated change – mostly just taking off overcoats and scarves, and adding summer hats, but when 36 people have to do it all at once, it’s a bit of a madhouse.

But we did it, and by all accounts the opera was beautiful. Everything went smoothly, no noticeable hiccups. People backstage, cast and crew, seemed to not be too confused, so that always makes me feel as if I’ve done my job well. There is something gratifying about being a stage manager in that people always appreciate you. At least the people backstage and onstage.

Now I have a little break before I plunge back into rehearsals again. I took the weekend to relax. It was truly a plan-free weekend. We actually spent all of Saturday morning playing “My bed is my island” as all five of us cuddled and napped and read in the 13 year old’s bed. It felt so indulgent. Then we did a few chores around the house and went to the pool for a couple hours. Highlight of our pool time was that the 13 year old taught me how to dive! I’ve never really been able to dive – just kind of teetered at the edge of the water then belly flopped in. The 13 year old gave me lots of tips and coached me through it. Yay! I’ve always wanted to figure this out.

After the pool, we came home and had pizza and watched Glee. Then after the kids went to bed, the Husband, 13 year old, and I watched Jaws. I had never seen Jaws before, and as the movie is 50 years old this year, the Husband thought it a good time to watch it. There was definitely some screaming and clutching going on while we watched. What a nerve-wracking and entertaining movie. I don’t know that I need to watch it again, but glad I checked that off my list. All in all, it was such a perfect, lazy Saturday. This is what summers are made for, I think.

The thirteen year old teaching the 5 year old how to dive.

Every time I have a gap between shows, I like to think about routines I want to set up (or return to) so that when I am back into working nights and weekends I have some good practices in place. Along those lines, something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately was this article by Leon Ho on Life Hack: Motivation vs. Discipline: Why One always Beats the Other (And It’s Not What You Think). The article made me think about how there were some things I was very disciplined about at while working (daily yoga, eating fruits and vegetables, finding time to get outside, making the bed.). And there were some things that just didn’t happen because I didn’t feel the motivation (journaling, running, check ins with the Husband, putting away my lunch box). It’s not like the former is more important than the latter – I just never felt like doing it. Reading Ho’s article really made me think about how waiting to be inspired to do something wasn’t going to work.

And because I’m a Questioner (per Gretchen Rubin), the article stuck with me because it broke down the brain chemistry of motivation vs. discipline to explain why discipline gets more consistent results. In a nut shell, motivation releases dopamine, which makes you feel awesome and powerful. Motivation lights up your brain and encourages action. However, these dopamine flows cab be fleeting and unpredictable. And this is why relying on feeling motivated to do something doesn’t work. Discipline, however, Ho writes, is about creating systems that will work even when motivation isn’t there – it’s the adulting pre-frontal cortex. It is really hard for the pre-frontal cortex to win out over dopamine, but you can build routines and habits that make it less of a struggle. This is the quote that really made me sit up:

“Picture Michael Phelps at 5:30 AM, staring at a chlorinated pool in Baltimore. It’s 2003, years before his first Olympic gold. The water’s cold. His muscles ache from yesterday’s 12,000-meter swim. Does he feel motivated? Hell no. But he dives in anyway. Every. Single. Day. Even Christmas.”

This was an eye-opening re-frame for me: Michael Phelps doesn’t swim every day because he wants to swim in a dopamine flood of motivation. He swims every day because that’s what he has to do to achieve his goals. So when people say you have to want things to get it, they aren’t talking about “wanting” to win a game or play your best in that moment, they’re talking about using that “want” to set up disciplined habits. So that your dopamine lacking brain will still do the thing even when it isn’t feeling warm dopamine fuzzies. It’s all about showing up, right? And towards that, thinking about how to show up. Or what can one do to make showing up a habit. Because you can’t rely on dopamine to get you there.

None of this is particularly groundbreaking or new, but sometimes a different framing can cause a lightbulb moment. So I started thinking of all the things I want to show up for, even when I don’t feel motivated. And here’s some of the list, and thoughts on how I can develop the discipline to do them.

Showing up for my physical self:
-Daily yoga. (Check – I do this by knowing that it’s the first thing I do in the morning)
-Sleep, specifically going to bed early. (I’m terrible at this – I need to be more disciplined about having a set bedtime. Maybe if it can be a time to be in bed, even if it’s with a book when I don’t want to go to sleep?)
-Eating fruits and vegetables with every meal. (Check – I stock the fridge with fruits and veggies and cut some up for myself every day when I’m prepping food for the kids. I can’t make them eat veggies, if I don’t do it myself.)
-Running or strength training every day. (working on this. Motivation is very weak on this one. I think I need a set time. I’ve been running in the morning with the kids following me on their bikes, but not sure if this will still work once school starts.)

Showing up for my mental self:
– journal
-paint/play piano
-write
-read
All these, I think, are about finding consistent time to do it. But there are only certain hours in the day. Some could fit into a weekly practice, though.

Showing up for my financial self:
– Monthly financial admin days to pay bills and review payments and any other financial housekeeping.
-monthly financial check ins with the Husband.
-Double check my pay stubs.

-not buying things impulsively and mindlessly
Again, I think a lot of these are all about scheduling and sticking to it. I think it’s hard for me to stay on track with some of these things because it’s very computer based and I tend to get distracted on the computer. Also finding time to meet with the Husband when we both feel like we have the mental capacity to talk finances is hard. But maybe we just have to schedule the time, and set the bar low – like 15 mins to look at the bank account together to start and then scale up from there? Or maybe we meet for lunch once a month and go over everything?

Showing up for my Work Self:
-Focused times to get ahead with paperwork so it’s not last minute.
A lot of ink has been spilled about productivity and focus at work. For me, I need to embrace the mantra “create before consume” and eliminate distractions for even just 45-60 mins of concentrated work first thing when I get in. (I need to get up and stretch after that anyway.)

Showing up for my social circle and far away family:
-spending time with friends – in a group and one on one.
-responding to texts and phone calls.
-sending texts and phone calls when I haven’t heard from then in while.
-offering support when they need it

– sending my parents pictures and updates of the kids regularly
I think the way to be disciplined about this might be to make scheduled efforts to reach out. Maybe every morning I send a text to one person to say, “Thinking of you.” Once a month see if anyone wants to grab lunch.

Showing up for My Family (Okay – some of these are a little more abstract, but I do think that for me it’s easy to neglect my family when I’m tired or busy or stressed. I think, “Oh, I’ll give them my attention once tech week is over”, as I rush out the door. And then when I do get home, it’s hard for me to remember to be loving. I want to figure out ways to show up for them when I’m not home on evenings and weekends and when my brain is full of work things. I don’t want to get prescriptive about these things, but along the lines of motivation vs. discipline – just because gestures of affection and connection and automatic and pre=planned, it doesn’t make them any less sincere. )
-Calling home on my dinner break. (I used to have an alarm at 6pm that was labelled “call home” so that I would remember to do this on long days at work. I should re-instate this. Sometimes at work I get caught up with what is in front of me – if it’s a work thing or a great chat with a colleague about potato chips, what not – and I forget to call home.)
-Weekly family meetings. (We currently do these at 7:30am on Saturday mornings. They are a little painful, but it’s a good way of checking in about the week ahead and making sure everyone gets the bigger picture of what is going on.)
-Being kind even when I’m tired.
-Tell them they are doing great. Sincerely.
-Giving them hugs and kisses every day when I leave for work, even though I’m in a rush. Along those lines, getting up before the Husband leaves for work so that we can have even one moment of connection. He leaves for work at 7am, and some days it’s hard. But this is where I think discipline can help me.
-Sneaking into their bedroom to give them hugs and kisses every night when I get home, even if I’m bone tired and they’re asleep.
-family rituals: Rose/Buds/Thorns, movie night, family clean up time

Whoa that was a lot of brain dump on that topic. Thanks for coming along on the ride (if you’re still here…) I think my big take away from that exercise is to wake up earlier, scroll less, and schedule my life more. For someone who love to have the ability to be flexible and capriciousness (for myself – let’s be honest, I can’t stand it in others.), discipline is met with resistance. But I guess that’s the point. Discipline allows me to fight against that inertia of not wanting to do something when I’m not feeling motivated. I think the trick is to balance a disciplined life with one where I can also have a sense of spontaneity and flexibility.

Grateful For – this week’s gratitudes, many tech week related:

-Tech week hero- The Husband, for recovering my files. The night before our first onstage rehearsal, my computer died at 9:30pm. I was only half way finished the wardrobe running paperwork and hadn’t saved the document into the cloud. (The wardrobe running is the document that tells the wardrobe and wig/make-up crew when people change clothes, what they are changing into and out of, where they will do this change, and how much time they have to do the change. For this show, because there are so many people and so many different costumes, the wardrobe running is a 10 page document.) Cue despair. For me, this was the ultimate version of the worst possible time for one’s computer to die. I mean it was such a horrific thing to happen, I couldn’t even have a meltdown because I just needed to finish the paperwork so I could give it to the crew for the next day. The Husband, calmly let me use his laptop and took my laptop to see if he could get it to turn back on. Meanwhile I started re-creating my paperwork from scratch. Eventually the Husband was able to pull my files from the computer and put it on a separate hard drive, even though the computer motherboard was dead. Thank goodness I didn’t have to re-create the entire wardrobe running from scratch!

-Duluth Trading Company tank tops with built in wireless bras. It was a hot and humid week to be doing outdoor opera last week. I usually don’t wear tank tops to work, but I made an exception for 80 degree humid weather. These tank tops from Duluth were my wardrobe MVP last week. They have built in bra cups so that I don’t have to worry about finding an appropriate bra to wear with them, and they are thick enough cotton that it doesn’t feel too skimpy to wear at work. I only have two, but I think I will order more next time they go on sale.

-I got a free t-shirt from our Fight Choreographer! I had asked him where I could buy swag from his business, and he showed up one day with this shirt for me!

He does fight and intimacy work for the stage.

-The crew, cast, creative team, and my co-workers for the show I worked on. Making opera magic happen! Having the opportunity to be part of making opera magic happen.

-my water bottle. And the coolers of ice and Gatorade that the theatre keeps backstage. Staying hydrated while I sweated buckets. Also the Coke that got me through the late nights.

– No more long awful commute. Friends, this will be the last time I complain about the commute to my summer job. At least until next summer. I’m glad I won’t have to drive those 18 miles again for a while. Though now I’ll have to find other times to listen to my audio book.

-This tomato sandwich because it represents friendship and summer:

The bread was from my co-worker at the opera. She is from out of town, and before she left for her next gig, she gave me two big bags of food that she hadn’t finished.
The tomatoes are from our friend who doesn’t like tomatoes so all the tomatoes in his CSA he gives to us.
The sandwich features basil mayonnaise, the basil plucked fresh from the Husband’s garden.
And eating it all outside on out back patio.
All these things made lunch just that much more poignant and full of love.

Looking Forward to:
-School starts in a week. Eeeep! I’m excited to start the new school year. I still have to get school supplies (note: this is done), and assess the clothing situation for the kids. They do all still have backpacks from last year so I don’t have to worry about getting new backpacks since that is often where the pickings are slim in mid to late August.

-Renaissance Faire!!!! Opens this weekend. We’re going to go Labor Day Monday, I think, for our annual Ren Faire Trip. Looking forward to shows and feats and turkey legs and people watching.

-Peaches in January. I spent Sunday canning peaches I had bought when there was a sale at the Farmer’s market. I kind of messed up and didn’t temper the first batch of jars and two of them cracked when I put them in the water bath. It was slightly alarming as I’d never experienced that before. I had to empty the canning pot, removing the broken glass and peaches floating the the water bath, and reheat the water again. So I have only 6.5 jars of peaches for this winter and lessons learned for next time. The kids wanted to eat the canned peaches immediately, but I said they couldn’t eat them until January at the latest.

-Lenten book club. Well, it’s not Lent anymore, and it’s not really a book club, but the group of ladies that started a Lenten book club has decided to continue to meet through the year to read and discuss life and spiritual things. This month’s reading is the parable of the Good Samaritan coupled with the story of Mary and Martha. I’m looking forward to a night of community and discussion.

What We Ate:
Sunday: Falafel sandwich and oysters. The stage management team went out to dinner together between rehearsals. The stage manager paid for my dinner, which was very nice of her.

Monday: Tofu and eggplant stir fry with Udon noodles. The Husband cooked, using some of the tenderest sweetest eggplants of the season that I had picked up from the Farmer’s Market.

Tuesday: Chicken Mole tacos leftover from the week before. I worked this evening and brought a salad from home – marinated beans, spinach, and arugula.

Wednesday: I had the same salad at work. Not quite sure what the rest of the family had.

Thursday: I went to a happy hour farewell gathering for a co-worker and had a BLT slider and fries. The family had mac n cheese, I think.

Friday: I had the same marinated beans, spinach, and arugula salad at work. The family had pizza and watched Star Wars: New Hope.

Saturday: dumplings and green beans and Glee.

Sunday: Tortellini and red sauce with roasted zucchini on the side. I sliced the zucchini into rounds, tossed them with salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika, oregano, and olive oil. Roasted for 15 minutes. Stuck parmesan cheese and basil in the food processor and then sprinkled it on the zucchini for the last five minutes or so of roasting. It was delicious. The kids ate the whole pan. I should have made more.

Hope you’re week is going well as the seasons change. I guess the season of life, if not the actual season. Here the weather has been distinctly on the cool side, that is tricking me into fall feelings, but I bet there are still warmer days in store.

Have you ever seen Jaws? Backpacks – Did you (or your kids) get new backpacks every school year? What are you disciplined about? What do you feel motivated about? Any tips for finding discipline for the things on my list?

Books Read, June and July 2025

I’m fitting two months in this reading recap, since I didn’t get around to writing June’s run down. I managed to read a lot in June, mostly because I wanted to finish the Mandela autobiography before I went to South Africa, so I was very disciplined about it, reading 15 pages a day for two month. July has been mostly audiobooks because of having a long commute.

Stillborn by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Roslind Harvey – This novel tells about two friends, Alina and Laura – they are independent career driven women whose have to learn to navigate their friendship when Alina decides to have a baby and her pregnancy develops complications. This is very much a character driven book – it’s one about life just happening and explores issues of friendship, motherhood, aging, and what we owe the young people in the world. Its a quiet book – just life being lived, but also profoundly touching as well. The lack of propulsive plot made the book feel a little slow at times, but I thought it was such a thoughtful, meditative book as well. I highlighted so many passages in this book, but two of my favorite:

“Dogs are low-intensity children: they give you love, joy and loyalty. They are affectionate creatures which need to be taken care of, but which in no way stop you from living your life. If you go on a trip or if they annoy you you can just send them away to boarding school. It makes me angry to think that some people even beat them without the risk of being sent to prison. Dogs do not ask questions. If they take offence, they show it timidly and it doesn’t last long. In any case, they can’t sue you, nor demand that you pay for their therapy. Instead of needing a babysitter, it’s enough to have someone take them out for a walk for a few hours. It’s true they never become independent, but it’s also true that they live for only a short time, eighteen years or so if you’re lucky. When they get ill or grow old, many owners opt for euthanasia they prefer to say they have them ‘put to sleep’ without facing legal problems or anyone questioning them about it. I know that there are also many people who treat them well and care for them as if they were a member of the family, but this does not diminish how sad their lives make me feel.”
-I’m not really a dog person, but I completely see how dogs can worm their way into one’s heart.

She doesn’t seem ill,’ I said.
The doctor assures me that this little girl, as well as being healthy, is determined to live.
‘That’s because she doesn’t read the newspapers yet. As soon as she sees the state the world’s in, she’ll change her mind.’
Alina looked up at me and said: ‘It’s so strange, don’t you think? Why would someone who has never lived want to do so?’ I recalled something I had read years ago, in the Buddhist books I had bought on my last trip to Nepal. According to those writers, who had been born many centuries before Inés and us, the emotion that most characterizes our species is desire, and it is desire, too, that makes us reincarnate as human beings.
-I often think about this instinct to live that children have. I mean I want to live because I know about music and love and chocolate. But babies? They know nothing about these things. And then, also, our instinct to nurture children, even those that we know will not survive.

Forever Your Rogue by Erin Langston, read by Justine Eyre and Will M. Watt – I tried to read this book last year, but couldn’t really get into it, but then I saw that the audiobook featured Will Watt, one of my favorite narrators, so I decided to give it another try. This is a sweet and funny fake engagement romance novel about Cora a widowed Countess who bribes her childhood friend and current wastrel Nathaniel to pose as her fiancé so that she can win custody of her children from her evil sister in law. There were some cute touches – each chapter opens with a letter, and I do love epistolatory novels – and Nathaniel’s arc of turning his life around is quite lovely to watch. But I will say the children in the story felt utterly unrealistic to me. All in all, not earth shattering in the genre, but a perfectly pleasant historical romance novel. I wasn’t crazy about Justine Eyre’s narration – it just sounded forced and strangled. Will Watt, though was perfection.

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, read by the author – I picked this book up after reading about it in an interview with Jose Andres where he cited this book as one that he thinks the President should read. Villavicencio is herself an undocumented immigrant and her book is part journalism part personal essay, as she travels across the U.S. to tell the stories of the undocumented immigrants who are embedded in the very fabric of our lives here in America. Undocumented immigrants live in a permanently liminal space – here and working, but with no access to safety nets – and Villavicencio details a lot of those lack of safety nets, from those in New York who responded to 9/11, to immigrants in Flint Michigan who were unaware of the water crisis there. Intertwined with the stories of others is her own journey and feelings about being a immigrant in America. This is a hard book in a lot of ways, and it made me realize how lucky I am because my immigration story, and that of my parents’ is very different from what it could have been. I will say, I listened to this on audio because it was the only version I could find; I might have preferred reading this to listening to it – Villavicencio’s narration is a little dry.

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela – I read Mandela’s autobiography in anticipation of my trip to South Africa. Mandela is a legendary leader, a prominent figure in modern South African history despite being in jail for almost thirty years. I found reading Mandela’s words riveting; his childhood and schooling, the injustices he suffered as a Black man in South Africa, his daring and illegal political work, the dehumanizing conditions of prison, his capacity for forgiveness and peace-making – I found all of it inspiring. Even though this is a very large book (clocks in at almost 600 pages), it is very readable, and moves quite quickly. I was very determined to finish this book before we left for South Africa so I imposed a very disciplined reading schedule for myself – 15 pages a day. I know it’s just one man’s story, but what a story he had to tell. I highlighted the heck out of this book too.

Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann, translated by Anthea Bell – This is a mystery novel featuring crime solving sheep. It was hilarious – I laughed out loud many times. The sheep casually eavesdrop on conversations in search of clues, sneak into churches and pubs and other mundane village fixtures. They are delightful. Seeing the world of humans though their eyes was a lot of fun – humans are quite incomprehensible to them. I will say, the actual mystery itself wasn’t very interesting to me, but I would read the sequel just to see what the sheep get up to next.

The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso – I picked up this book because it was on a list of books set in South Africa, and I like reading books set in my destination when I travel. This novel tells the story about two eighty year old widows, neighbors in Cape Town, one White and one Black, who do NOT get along. Then things happen and they are forced to put up with each other. This book also deals with the legacy of Apartheid in today’s South Africa as Hortensia and Marion are both touched by events in the past. Read this if you want a book about crochety 80 year old women with razor sharp tongues and complicated histories.

Bombshell by Sarah McClean – The first book in McLean’s Hells Belle’s historical romance series (I’d read the second one already, and decided to start with the start of the series.) The main characters Sesily Talbot and Caleb Calhoun were side characters in another McLean novel/series, so this book felt a little bit like being dropped off in the middle of a series, even though it was the firs book of this current series. Sesily and Caleb have long been attracted to each other, and this book is a lot about them fighting that attracting while Sesily tries to covertly bring about the downfall of a dastardly Duke. (I think it was a duke?) To be honest, Sesily and Caleb were the least interesting part of the novel – they fought, made out (and then some), had misunderstanding and secrets and a little bit of martyr syndrome. Pretty standard romance stuff. The best part of the book was the friendship between Sesily and her fellow female vigilantes – their honest, loyal, bantering friendship made this book sparkle. I’m sticking to this series to read more about the female friendships.

The Red Notebook by Anton Laurain, translated by Jane Aitkin and Emily Boyce read by Alex Wyndham – (Interesting… this is my third novel in translation in this post…) I got this book because I needed a new audiobook for the car and a bunch of people on Reddit recommend Alex Wyndham as an audiobook narrator. This novel tells the story of Laurent, a bookseller, who finds a purse in the street and searches for the owner. The owner, Laure, had been mugged and is in the hospital. The books kind of feels like a Hallmark movie – predictable, warm, and a full cast of family and friends to meet and meddle along the way. There are lots of fun literary references and there is also a grumpy cat that I enjoyed. All in all, a sweet, pleasant read/listen, though not terribly memorable.

Drop Dead by Lily Chiu read by Philippa Soo and John Cho – Two rival journalists compete for the chance to write a tell all about a famed reclusive author. This enemies to lovers novel is a little different in tone from Chiu’s other books I’ve read; first of all it’s in third person alternating narratives when her past novels have been in first person. I miss a little of the quirky first person voice, to be honest, and the book also felt a little unresolved in terms of the BIG SECRET that the reclusive author was hiding. I would read this book for Chiu’s witty insights and banter, the cats, and the glimpses into the newsroom, particularly obituary writing.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, an Audible Original – Not strictly an audiobook, rather this is a dramatized audio version of Christie’s first Poirot novel. I thought this was really really well done. The voice acting was spot on (Peter Dinklage was Poirot, Phil Dunster, who plays Jamie Tartt on Ted Lasso was another character, Rob Delany from Catastrophe played the American husband), and the writer/adaptor punched up some of the WWI aspects to create more atmosphere and tension. There was an original score that was by turns creepy and nostalgic. I don’t remember if I’ve ever read this mystery, but I was for sure as invested in finding the murderer as I was in the lives of everyone in the story.

On my Proverbial nightstand:

Nelson and Willie: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg – This dual biography details the relationship of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. There is a lot in this book that didn’t make it into Mandela’s autobiography. Understandably so. It’s all quite scandalous.

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good – Novel about five teenagers who struggle to adapt to life in Vancouver after leaving the church-run residential school they were forced into as children. So far it’s been grim but engrossing.

Tru Biz by Sara Novic – I started reading this book a while back, but then it went on the back burner while I finished some books that were actually due back at the library. I’m really loving this book about a high school for Deaf teens trying to live their teenage lives, and the headmistress trying to keep everything together.

The Beast Takes a Bride by Julie Anne Long – the next book in the Palace of Rogue series. It’s pretty swoony so far.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, read by Ray Porter – This book is a lot of fun and Porter is a great narrator.

(bi)Weekly recap + what we ate: Things I would replace immediately

Hello from a quiet empty house! The Husband has taken the children on the annual trip to Indiana and since I have to work, I have stayed behind. I won’t lie, it’s really nice. You know how they talk about secret single behavior in Sex and the City? The thing that people who live with other people do when they don’t have to be with or live with other people? My secret single behavior is:
-Sleeping with the blinds up so that the sunlight wakes me up in the morning.
-listening to NPR.
-Not emptying the dishwasher until there are so many dirty dishes on the counter and I need the space back.
-Eating snack dinner.
-Going to bed early. When the kids are home, I tend to go to bed late because after I put them to bed, I just want to stay up and scroll. But without kids, I can scroll during the day! and then go to bed early. (Though, TBH, there isn’t a lot of this going on because I’ve been working til 10:30pm every night.)

I feel like there are other things I do that would qualify as secret single behavior – wearing the same clothes for three days in a row (I do change my underwear), eating food from the back of the fridge that might be a little too old, making bodily function noises… But you know what? I do this when the family is home anyway, so it’s not really secret. And the family puts up with it and this might be one reason I love them.

The house is quiet. Almost too quiet. I was dog sitting for a couple days, but even the dog has now gone home, so it’s just me. I had all sorts of plan of things to do with my empty house, but between work and walking the dog and sleep, I find I don’t have as much time leftover as I would like.

You know that saying by Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.”

Some sort of goals for this child-free weekend (or what remains of it.)
-Finish my book (I’m less than 100 pages from the end!)
-prep food for next week, since it is tech week. Boiled eggs, marinated beans. Maybe bake something (Japanese milk bread?). Chai concentrate. Lemonade concentrate?
-Blog post. Maybe prep a few more.
-Declutter the area by my desk in the bedroom.
-Consider if we can fit a camping trip in this summer.
-journal and reflect on July and plan August/ School year things.
-Farmer’s market?
-watercolor time

One thing on my list I did do was hang out with my friend K. We went kayaking along the Potomac – something I’d never done before and which I had always wanted to do. We went down to Fletcher’s Boat house, rented a tandem kayak for an hour and went upstream a little bit, then back down, all at a meandering pace, enjoying the wildlife, sunshine, and occasional breeze. I can’t believe I’ve never done this before – Fletcher’s Cove is easy to get to, there’s plenty of parking, and here the Potomac is gentle. It’s not so isolated that you can’t hear the airplanes flying into National, or see the traffic on the GW Parkway, but these are all very distant and being on the water feels like it’s own special place.

Afterwards, my friend K and I went to grab lunch at a nearby sandwich place. We split a salad and a tomato sandwich. The sandwich was made from the tastiest summer tomatoes and topped with with basil mayo, all tasting of sunshine and leisure. And afterwards we split a cup of strawberry ice cream. We were there for two hours, just chatting and catching up – it was just a perfect summer friend date. How wonderful it is to have friends (or spouses, or kids) who like splitting food so you never have to choose just one option, or you never have to finish that ice cream on your own.

It was a nice way to spend the day away from the opera and work, recharging my emotional battery for what will be a long week ahead.

The past few weeks have been lots of kid time and lots of work and lots of driving. Here are some moments:

The rehearsal hall strewn with flowers. There is a scene in our show where the chorus throws flowers all over the stage. The effect is quite stunning. It’s the kind of thing you only do once or twice during room rehearsals because it’s such a pain to have to clean up. Much to my surprise and delight, at the end of rehearsal, most of the cast stayed to help us pick up all the flowers and petals. What kindness.

Best commute of the week: driving from the 13 year olds’ theatre showcase to work. There is a farm stand on the way and I got to stop an pick up vegetables and peaches and plums.

Worst commute of the week: Friday evening after rehearsal. Which, you would think, it’s 10:30pm on a Friday night, why would traffic be bad???? Well it was, due to construction. I guess it makes sense to do construction when the traffic is lighter. Though it makes the traffic less light. It took me an hour to drive the 18 miles home. The Husband reminded me of a saying from when he lived in Minneapolis: In Minneapolis there are two seasons- Winter and construction.

Conversation with my the five year old:
5 year old: [Big brother] said I wasn’t smart.
Me: Is it true?
5 year old: No. It hurt my feelings.
Me: I would just ignore him, if I were you.
5 year old: Well, I’m not you.

Speaking of the 5 year old, we are all determined to get her to ride a bike by the end of the summer. Even the 13 year old is part of the efforts. I’m a little surprised because the 5 year old is quite fearless – she is already diving, even before she can really swim a full length of the pool – so her reluctance in bike riding has been giving me pause.

Swimming laps. While the kids have been away, I’ve gone to the pool to swim laps. I have to say at first it felt weird to go to the pool without the kids, but told myself I was being silly – we are all members of the pool, I get to use it too! Our pool is never crowded, and showing up at 11am, I practically have the whole place to myself, except for the biddies who sit under the cabana and gossip together. It’s been such a soothing thing to be able to swim back and forth and back and forth, just thinking about air and breath and movement. I’ve been feeling a little overstimulated lately – too much light and sound and constant singing in my ears. The pool has become the place I go when I want quiet. I’m coming to appreciate places I can go for just 30-60 mins for a quick recharge. Ducking into a museum, dropping by the pool, a quick library visit… Sometimes I don’t go places because I think I need to spend a few hours there, but really for places that are free (or to which I have a membership), going for a quick trip a couple times a week is just as much of a value as going for a half day once a month.

I checked something off the 5 year old’s summer fun list and we made popsicles. These are watermelon-lime-strawberry popsicles:

Sweet and sour snacks: Two snacks making my mouth happy these days are Haribo Twin Snakes and Taiwanese salty dried plums. The latter I brought back from Taiwan in January, and only now just opened because they are actually quite difficult to find the the U.S. and I knew once I finished the package, that would be it for a while. When I was growing up, my grandmother would bring these sweet/sour/salty treats from Taiwan when she visited us, and I would nibble the flesh off the seed, savoring all the different tastes swirling around, then I would pop the seed in my mouth and suck on it until all the flavor was gone. This brand of salted plum I got from Taiwan is seedless, so I can’t suck on the seed, but I’m savoring them all the same.

As for Twin Snakes, the 13 year old turned me on to these. They are like two gummy worms stuck together where one is sweet and one is sour. I love the sweet/sour combination.

But speaking of Twin Snakes. We might have had an incident where the two little kids ate the 13 year old’s Twin Snakes while she was out of the house. As a punishment, I had them write a card of apology to their big sister. Well, the 8 year old wrote it:

In case you can’t read 8 year old scrawl, it says, “Dear Lulu Sorry for eating your twin snak[e]s. Yell at me all you want. Don’t yell at dad. Sincerely A”

On replacing things….Towards the end of the previous week, my watch stopped working. In the middle of rehearsal. As someone who’s job it is to keep track of time, this was kind of a panic inducing thing. I ended up having to use my phone for the rest of rehearsal, which isn’t ideal because I find it distracting and annoying to have to keep pulling it out. I didn’t get around to replacing my watch for three or four days. In the past when my watch stopped working, I just went to Target to get a new one. It’s a pretty basic Timex digital watch. EXCEPT – the Target near me didn’t have them. Indeed, the sales associate looked at me strangely when I first asked where they were, since the watches weren’t in accessories where I was used to finding them. She sent me down to electronics. Of course, all they had down there were smart watches. The associate in electronics seemed somewhat confused that I would want a non-smart watch. Anyhow, after that bust of a Target run, I did end up ordering the exact same watch from Amazon, and the next day, my wrist felt not as empty any more.

Anyhow, it got me thinking of what other things in my life I would replace immediately if I lost or broke it. Of course there are the obvious things like wallet, ID, keys, phone, laptop – things that could be counted as “essential.” What, though, are the non-essential things that I would replace immediately? I feel like sometimes when things break or I lose them, I go a while before replacing them – I’ll try to make do with a replacement I already have at home, or just decided that I don’t need to replace them at all. There are, however, little luxuries that I have gotten used to, which feel almost essential to me now, that I would replace immediately if something happened.

-Gelrup slippers. I almost always wear slippers around the house and I love my Gelrups because they are made of wool so aren’t too hot in the summer, yet still cozy in the winter. If my slippers went missing, I guess it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but there is something about walking on bare floors/carpet that makes me cringe a little bit and I would want my slippers back as soon as possible. (Probably large part due to the fact that we don’t sweep enough….)

-Yeti mug. I love everything about my Yeti Rambler with the Hot Shot lid. I love that it keeps my drinks cold or hot for hours. I love that it is dishwasher safe. I love that it doesn’t leak (unless I forget to close the lid properly) so that I can toss it into my bag and not worry about tea getting everywhere. I love the colour. I leave the house with this in my hand 95% of the time. I actually did lose this one time – I had left it behind in the lobby of the building where I had been taking art classes. I immediately went out and got a new one even though I have a few back up travel mugs. They just don’t do all the things I need them to do. I should probably throw the spare ones out, but I think, “What would I do if I lost my Yeti?” Apparently, the answer is run out an immediately buy another one.

-Airpods. Maybe this should fall under “essential” now that my phone no longer has a jack for earphones? Being able to listen to books, music, podcasts, etc, and take phone calls hands free – I would be sad if I had to go back to wired earphones. The 13 year old recently lost/broke her Bluetooth headphones and now wanders around the house using crappy old wired earbuds, the kind that you get for free on airplanes. We have DRAWERS of these crappy airline earbuds. Anyhow, there is something delightfully old school about seeing her with wires dangling. But me, I don’t think I could ever go back.

-Flip Belt. Look, I try not to let sad excuses stop me from running, but I will admit there have been days when I decided not to go running because I couldn’t find my Flip Belt. Running while trying to hold my phone and without my water bottle is just so…. inconvenient. I have thought about getting a second one as back up, but I do feel like I’m the kind of person who keeps better track of things when I only have one.

-pen holder. This clips to my binder and helps me not lose my pens and pencils. It’s from Muji and one of the best $3 I’ve ever spent. The sad thing, though, is even though I would run out and replace this if I were to lose it, I actually can’t because Muji doesn’t sell them anymore. In fact I can’t find them anywhere on the internet. So I better not lose this.

-Little alarm clock – This clock sits with me in rehearsal, so I can keep an eye on the time. Sure there’s a clock on the wall. Sure I also can look at my phone. But there is something more immediate about having the time at a glance, without have to pick up my phone. Once and a while I forget to bring it to rehearsal and I feel lost. I do actually have more than one of these.

-Travel Bluetooth keyboard. My keyboard is paired with my phone, my iPad and my computer, and it’s only a little bigger and thicker than an envelope so I can just slip it into my laptop bag. I love using it when I have to fill out registration forms on my phone – typing on the phone is not something I excel at. Half the time, I hit the wrong key and have to start over again – it’s very frustrating. Similarly, typing on the iPad is just not … convenient. This keyboard was a game-changer for blogging on my tablet – so much faster than typing on the screen. This keyboard has made my life so much better that when I lost it recently on our South Africa trip, I replaced it as soon as I got home.

I’m sure there are more things, but off the top of my head those are a few things that are panic-inducing if lost. I sometimes feel so materialistic when I panic over lost things and immediately replace them, but there are some non-essentials that do indeed make my life so much better.

Grateful For:
-Nature oases in the city. As my friend and I were floating along the Potomac, I was just so grateful that even though we live in an urban area, there are lots of ways to get to nature. Being among green things is so good for my soul.

-Lifeguards.

-Cooler weather. We’ve had a few weeks of unbearably hot weather. So glad it is cooling off a little bit.

-The 13 year old’s theatre instructors. We went to her theatre camp showcase and it was so much fun to see her singing and dancing.

-A perfectly ripe, juicy mango.

-Sleeping in. I don’t know if 7:00am counts as sleeping in, but it does for me, without kids to wake me up. Though the dog did wake me up once at 6:30am. I took him out for a walk and then went back to bed and slept for another hour.

-People who plant gardens so I have beautiful flowers to see on my walks.

Looking Forward To:

-Tech week. I don’t love tech week – it’s stressful, and moves quickly, and I have to be so very prepared to go into it because a lot of people rely on me to get them where they need to be so that the show can happen. And I’m always terrified of making a wrong decision or telling someone the wrong thing. YET when it goes well, it feels really good. But truth, I am looking forward to this particular tech week because it is in an outdoor venue, which means that we can’t have lighting sessions until it is dark. (Lighting sessions are tech sessions where we tweak the lighting without the cast onstage waiting for us to fix the light cues – this is particular to opera. In theatre, they usually set lighting cues with the artists onstage.) Which means that we usually have lighting sessions after rehearsals. So we will rehearse from 8-11:30p with the singers, then we will let the singers go and light until 2am. This sounds intense, right? I will admit, though, there’s a special air of bonding in the air when you are standing onstage at 1:30am setting lighting cues. Like only the strong get to stay behind and do it. But really, my favorite part of over night lighting sessions, and what I’m looking forward to is that the company feeds us between the rehearsal and the lighting session. Free food makes a lot of things better in my book. Maybe I’m cheap, maybe I’m a sell out. But free food, man, is irresistible to me. I’m really looking forward to that 11:30pm burger, fries, and Coke.

-The family coming home. I don’t think I necessarily miss having the kids around, but I am very excited that they will be home soon.

-Tap dancing lessons! The Husband and I had a session where we looked at activities for the kids for the upcoming year – trying to figure out where they will fall and what we have the budget and logistical capacity for. I’m not in rehearsals until the end of October, so we can be a little activity heavy the first few months of school. So I signed the 5 year old and myself up for parent/tot tap dancing lessons. I’ve always wanted to learn to tap dance, and the 5 year old wanted to take dance classes. I’m so excited. The 8 year old also wants to take tap classes, but I need to see what the soccer schedule is like first.

-Basil. The Husband planted a whole bunch of basil and it’s going gangbusters. I can’t wait to use it. There will be pesto. I also am thinking of making some kind of basil simple syrup to have with fizzy water. Any other suggestions?

-Next up on my audiobook cue – it’s come highly recommended by so many people – it’s not my usual fare, so I’m excited to see if I like it.

Whoa – I just saw that this is 16 hours long… not sure if I’ll finish it before the end of this gig. I hope traffic is not so bad that I do finish it….

What We Ate: Two weeks worth of dinners to record, but really the last few days here don’t really count because … well secret single behavior.

Monday: Caprese Pasta Salad. Tortellini, Buffalo mozzarella, diced tomatoes, basil, drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

Tuesday: Shrimp tacos. I prepped the shrimp and the mango slaw before I went to work, and when the Husband came home he just had to heat the tortillas and sautée the shrimp and dinner was fast and easy. (I had leftover pasta salad at work.) I think the Husband also make a tofu filling for the tacos too.

Wednesday: I had more pasta salad at work. The Husband picked up Bahn mi sandwiches for the kids. He himself went out for dinner with his friend.

Thursday: The kids and Husband had steamed green beans and leftovers at home. I was done rehearsal by 5pm, but it would have taken an hour to get home at that point, so I went to Yard House with the other stage managers. I had a really tasty Ahi Tuna sandwich.

Friday: Pizza and the Minecraft movie for the family. I had some kind of leftovers at work. I hear the movie was surprisingly good.

Saturday: The family had dumplings and steamed green beans. Leftovers again for me.

Sunday: We had spaghetti with red sauce, Caesar salad, and garlic bread. There is something so comforting and delicious to me about spaghetti with jarred red sauce. So simple yet often just what I’m in the mood for.

Monday: Eggplant and pork stir fry with udon noodles. I had the leftover spaghetti at work

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – chicken mole tacos. This is the mole sauce that I had made three months ago. Thank you past me for freezing three batches of the mole sauce for easy dinners later on.

Wednesday: This is the day the family departed so I’m not sure what they had for dinner. I had the leftover eggplant and pork stir fry.

Thursday: Family still gone. To be honest, I didn’t really eat dinner this day because I went to work late and worked straight through to the end of rehearsal. It’s not an abusive system, I swear. I just wasn’t hungry when I had time to sit down and eat, so I didn’t. I did have snacks througout rehearsal and then I did eat half an avocado and sesame rice crackers when I got home.

Friday: Family still gone. Another day without having to cook. And actually another day where I wasn’t hungry becasue we started teh day so late. I had yogurt and blueberries when I got home from work.

Saturday: Family still gone. I had snack dinner – brie, goat cheese, and Triscuits.

I hope you have a wonderful week as we round the corner of summer. We’ve flipped out three month at a time Calendar and eep! I can see October.

Do you have any secret single behaviors? Is there anything yo’ve always wanted to learnt o do? Do you remember who taught you to ride a bike? What should I do with all that basil? What things would you replace immediately replace? Tell me everything!