Family – Life Off Headset

New York City Day, January 2025

In the scheme of things, New York is not that far from Washington, DC. Even still we don’t get up there very often, One of the reasons we don’t go to New York City very much is because the price of a hotel kind of intimidates me. Last time we went for an overnight stay, we stayed with friends. That was in 2017. But since then, I’ve discovered that NYC is actually a very manageable day trip from D.C. A couple of years ago, the Husband and I took a day trip up, leaving on the 6:30am train and coming home on the 6:30pm train. If you can buy train ticket well ahead of time, it’s actually not too expensive. And then you don’t have to pay for a hotel.

When I saw that the two older kids had a random Wednesday off at the end of January, I thought about things we could do. Usually on these days off I will take the kids down town to the Mall or on a hike somewhere local. On a whim, though, I looked at train tickets to New York and they were not that expensive – $120 round trip and the 8 year old was discounted. (It would could have been even cheaper if we took an even later train; the DC-> NY leg was only $45!, but the return was $75. The 11pm return was $25)

So I started to look for things to do, thinking we’d go to a museum or something, and then I discovered that the last week of January was Broadway Week and a lot of shows had 2-for-1 ticket deals. Now usually I take a long time to plan things and I hem and haw and book things two minutes after I should and things are way more expensive than they could have been. I tend to over think travel. But this time, I surprised myself and decided to book the trip. This was of course after asking the Husband if it was a silly idea, after all we had just gotten back from an not inexpensive trip to Asia. Why not have an adventure? I thought. I’m never the “fun parent” and I wanted to be the “fun parent.” Plus I wanted to see some theatre.

Originally I wanted to take the kids to see SIX since they have been listening to that soundtrack non-stop for the better part of a year. But there was not Wednesday matinee of SIX. So when I looked to see what else there was, I saw that there was a Wednesday matinee for Hadestown. I didn’t know anything about Hadestown except that all the theatre people I knew raved about it. Well that was good enough endorsement for me, and Hadestown it was! All together I think we paid $77 per ticket with the Broadway Week deal.

The day of the trip, I got everyone up at 5:00am so that we could get on the metro at 5:30pm for Union Station. I packed lots of snacks, water, and some books and games for the train ride. The kids were surprisingly uncomplaining about having to get up so early. I guess they were looking forward to the trip too. I also promised them hot chocolate if we got to Union Station and didn’t miss our train. So there was that. We got onto our train with plenty of time to spare and we were off! One of the things I love about taking the early morning train is getting to watch the sun come up as we sped up the coast.

Three and a half hours later we were in New York City. It still felt like morning when we got there, and we had a whole day in front of us!

First stop: Bagels! We picked up bagels from Best Bagels and took them to Bryant Park and sat in the park to eat. New York bagels are enormous! I had a bacon and egg bagel, the 8 year old had a blueberry bagel with strawberry cream cheese and the 13 year old had a salmon sandwich. The bagels were soft and tender, breadier than I am used to. And the blue berry bagel was a revelation – it tasted like real blueberry, not like artificial blueberries.

We sat in Bryant Park for an hour, watching people go by and the 8 year old chased pigeons.

Next stop – after a stop at CVS and a bathroom- was the New York Pubic Library. This wasn’t actually the part of the library with books, rather we saw one of their exhibits of parpphenelia related to their collections. There were some video clips and design sketches from their performing arts library, the papers and novels of James Baldwin. My favorite part was the collection of stuffed animals that inspired Winnie the Pooh:

The original Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga. Roo apparently was lost in an orchard somewhere.

After examining the library’s exhibit, we headed towards our next stop, but as we were leaving the library, we saw a group giving juggling lessons. What a whimsically serendipitous thing. We spent about twenty minutes tossing bags around and watching the other jugglers.

Our next stop was Kinokuniya, a Japanese bookstore that specialized in manga and graphic novels. It was an amazing place – the kind of place where dreams come true. At least for me. The store was three stories. The main floor was full of book- best sellers, a children’s section, gift gooks, the usual. (There was a four foot display for Onyx Storm). The second floor was all manga and graphic novels. These were the two floors where the kids wanted to spend their time and money.

The second floor – all manga and graphic novels.

The lower floor, though…. The lower floor was my heaven- the lower floor featured a stationary section. Pens and notebooks and paper and pencil cases galore. I was in a state of bliss. So many A5 notebooks! My fingers trailed over paper and pages, reveling in the different textures. And all the pens- so many colours and sizes.

We stayed at Kinokuniya until it was time to head over to the theatre, leaving with quite a haul. Each kid chose a book – the latest Dogman for the 8 year old and a graphic novel called “My Super Hot Husband” for the 13 year old, that is not as racy as the titles would have you believe – and I picked out a notebook and two pens.

(Okay on the note of My Super Hot Husband. I had no way to vet it before we bought it because all the books in the Manga section were wrapped in plastic. I tried to Google the title, but nothing really came up. I had a massive debate with myself in the bookstore about whether or not I should tell the 13 year old that she couldn’t get the book. In fact I did make her pick out another book. But then I couldn’t really come up with a good reason why she couldn’t make her own choices as to what she wanted to read as long as she felt comfortable discussing topics with me that came up. I’d rather she feel confident and open about sharing her reading choices with me, than ashamed and hide things from me. Plus, why and I so worried about a book when there is the whole internet in front of her? So in the end, she came home with “My Super Hot Husband” with the proviso that I got to read it too.)

From the bookstore, it was a fifteen minute walk up Broadway to the theatre. Up past Times Square, full of brilliance and bustle, even at 1pm in the afternoon. We held hands tightly so as not to lose one another as we wove in and out of crowds. When we arrived at the theatre there was quite a line to get in because everyone had to go through security screening. At first I was worried that we would be late for the show, but the line moved very quickly. I suppose when you do eight shows a week the staff gets very used to moving people through quickly. Broadway theatres are so different from the theatres I work in. For one – they are much smaller so the doors open straight into the theatre.

I’m going to give a huge shout out to the ushers at the theatre. There was one lady stationed by the bathrooms. She was managing the traffic with such firm efficiency and calm. “Please move in. You can stand against that wall and wait for a stall on the left. Thank you. Can you stand here behind the person with the plaid shirt, and wait for a stall on the right. Please don’t worry. I’ll get everyone into the bathroom and into their seats before the show. I never leave anyone in the bathroom. Step this way, please….” It made my stage manager soul really delighted to watch her work.

After our bathroom stop, we went to our seats. And there was another usher who looked at the kids and asked, “Is this anyone’s first Broadway show?”

The eight year old said it was his first Broadway show, and the usher gave him a sticker set that said, “My First Broadway Show!” One sticker was to go on his program and one was to go on his shirt. He wanted to save the shirt sticker for later, but he did put a sticker on his program.

In our seats. They weren’t the most expensive or the cheapest, but Broadway theatres are so small that I think all the seats had pretty good views.

I didn’t know a whole lot about Hadestown going in. It’s billed as a folk musical which intertwines the myths of Orpheus/Eurydice and Hades/Persephone, and sets it all during the Dust Bowl. We had listened to the soundtrack to prepare, and on the train in I listened to a few podcasts on Greek mythology with the kids because I had heard that if you didn’t know the underlying myths the story might be hard to follow. Other than that, I didn’t know anything about the production aspects of the show. I had known that Hadestown had won a lot of Tonys in 2019, but then there was the pandemic, and it fell off my radar. I wanted to go in without a whole lot of information, so I could experience the show pretty fresh.

The show was AMAZING! I loved it so much. – Okay, a gripe first. During the show not one, but TWO cellphones went off. TWO!!!! The second one went off in the second act during a moment of absolute silence. WTF!!!?!?!. People, turn your phones to silent! – But even that could not ruin a wonderful time at the theatre. Technically the show was stunning, the set seemed simple when you first walked in, but then it became such an integral part of the drama. The actors inhabited and interacted with the set in such beautiful organic ways. I loved the musicians being onstage – you could really watch them play and the actors work off them. I loved the way the ensemble moved together. And I also really just loved the story telling. I mean we all know how the Orpheus story ends, but I was still on the edge of my seat as the story unfolded. The show has so much to say about connection and feeling alone and the importance of stories in our life. The songwriter Anais Mitchell first wrote the musical in 2006 as a concept album, but so much of the show felt really pertinent to our times. Hades is a wealthy womanizing mogul who runs the mining town, exploiting the poorer people. There is literally a s song called, “Why We Build the Wall”. There was one line when a character gives a toast “To the times we live in now” which was greeted by the audience with absolute silence and a palatable air of tension. I love when a theatre experience feels like it is perfect for them moment. The whole timeless/ timeliness of art – I think about that a lot.

After the show, we went for dinner. The kids had requested burgers. I had to admit I was a little nervous about eating near the theatre because I hate waiting in lines and eating in crowded places, but we ended up at Bareburger a nice quiet burger place with no wait. (Maybe because it was only 5:00pm?). I think the place is actually a chain, but it still had a nice sit down/neighborhood feel. We ordered fried pickle chips, and each of us had a burger.

After dinner, we had a few hours before our train, so we wandered back to Penn Station slowly, staying a few blocks from Broadway. We got some boba at Jooy Tea Shop. The Boba was very good and the drinks not too sweet.

Then we stopped at Muji near Penn Station. Because one Japanese stationary store in one day wasn’t enough. I love Muji – the simplicity and practicality of everythint they carry. We didn’t buy anything at Muji because we had already bought ourselves presents earlier in the day. But it was fun to look.

We made it back to the train station with plenty of time to spare and soon we were on the 7:40pm train back to D.C. The train ride back was uneventful. The kids read their new books and played games on their screens. We were back in DC a little after 11:30pm, and didn’t have to wait but a few minutes for the Metro home. By midnight everyone was tucked in bed.

Just for my records, I kept track of how much the day cost, and here’s the breakdown:

Train Tickets: $330 (for three tickets)
Hadestown Tickets: $250 (for three tickets)
Hot Chocolate at Train Station: $8
Bagels: $34
CVS: $8 (Funny story – I had to buy pads because I had a period emergency. But then I left the pads in the bathroom at the park! I felt really stupid about this one. But the 13 year old found some pads at the bottom of her bag. I’ll never give her a hard time about not being prepared ever again.)
Kinokuniya Bookstore Haul: $80
Dinner: $64
Boba: $19
TOTAL: $793 – So it wasn’t exactly a cheap day, but I think as a once every six months or so splurge-y day of fun for me and the kids, it felt pretty doable.

All in all, a great day. Full of adventures, but moving at a slow enough pace that I didn’t feel rushed. I don’t know if Broadway Week is a regular thing, but I’m going to keep my eye out next year because it was such a fun, doable day trip for us.

Winter Break 2024-2025: Taiwan and Kuala Lumpur

Happy New Year, everyone!

It’s been a little quiet here lately, I know. We are currently on our way home after a week in Taiwan followed by four days in Kuala Lumpur. The trip has been beautiful, exhilarating, exhausting, eye opening, and full of loved ones. I think I realized on this trip, the most important thing is family.

Here are some highlights, in case I don’t get to write recaps.

There was so much food:

Night Markets in Taiwan:

Temples:

Visiting Family:

Amazing hotel breakfasts:

Such well thought out family bathrooms:

Even a few quiet moments:

And in Kuala Lumpur, iconic sights:

Animal sightings:

Islamic Art:

And even more food:

There were definitely times when I thought we made the wrong choice to come this far, to be in a part of the world so different from home. There were tears and arguments and lots of people being hangry. We’d never travelled so far as a family of five, and I have to say I am so proud of how everyone did. It hasn’t been the most comfortable or relaxing trips- I wouldn’t even call it a “vacation”- but it’s certainly been an adventure.

More soon!

I hope you have had a beautiful New Year!

Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to school 2024!

Well we’re off to the races with the 2024-2025 school year. And a new month. Whew. It was a pretty uneventful first week. The kids went to school. They came home. Extracurricular activities haven’t yet started, and I’m not yet working on a show, so it does feel like we are easing into the new school year.

First day of school celebratory boba run coupled with an Hmart trip.

Right out of the gate, though, the 7th grader’s middle school had their Back to School Night on Thursday. It felt a little soon to have a Back To School Night the fourth day of school, but oh well. I was glad of a chance to go – aside from the school plays and some early pick ups in the office, I haven’t really seen her middle school yet; last year it seemed as if every school event was on an evening when I had to work. At Back to School Night, the majority of the evening had the parents/guardians going to their student’s classes in order, with six minutes in each class and four minutes to get from one period to the other. Each student has seven classes a day, plus advisory and homeroom- down hallways, up stairs, from one end of school to another. I don’t know how the 12 year old manages this every day. I was exhausted by the end of the evening, but it was nice to put faces to the teachers and get a sense of what school is like for her. Last year I found middle school to be a huge black hole – the kid went to school. There were weekly newsletters that came home – all good things though. Once in a while a message from the Principal about an incident, or a form for me to sign. A few times a year, I saw grades. I suppose middle school is just one more step to independence and not knowing what my kid is up to.

My mother and my aunt were still in town most of last week. They had gone to New York City, but came back mid week. We did some less obvious touristy things. One day we went downtown to the Kennedy Center. We didn’t see a show or anything, but it’s just a beautiful building to walk around, and we had lunch at the Cafe on the roof, where there is a wonderful view of DC. There is an exhibit on JFK and his role in the arts. On that day, since we were already in the city, we went to the Portrait Gallery. I mainly picked the Portrait Gallery because it’s an easy metro ride and also I love sitting in its courtyard. There was an exhibit on Hollywood portraits, what I really liked seeing.

One of the portraits was of Merle Oberon, which I found fascinating because I didn’t realize that she was half South Asian. The blurb next to her portrait talked about how she had to hide her mixed race identity because of discrimination. I think of how I have half Asian kids and how it’s kind of no big deal because being mixed race a) is kind of a meaningless term – what is “race” anyhow? and b) is so common these days. I once read a statistic that the majority of kids will be of mixed race in the next ten years. (Or something like that – don’t quote me – it’s one of those statistics that’s stuck in my head, but I don’t remember where I heard it.) So thinking about being a mixed race person when it wasn’t so common and even considered scandalous is one of those things that I find really interesting to read about.

The day after that, we went to The National Museum of Health and Medicine, which is just a mile from my house. It’s a collection of body parts and medical equipment and photos and artifacts and such things related to the human body and how it can fall apart. The collection was started during the Civil War when doctors were encouraged to keep specimens of body parts and what not for research purposes. The most famous thing about it is that it has the bullet that killed Lincoln, along with some of his hair and the bloody cuffs of the doctor who operated on him. I didn’t realize this, but it also has a piece of President Garfield’s spine as well, from when he was shot. I kind of feel like you need to have a very strong stomach and sense of curiosity to go to this museum. It was especially interesting to go to the museum with my aunt who is a physician. She reminisced about her medical school days and pointed out the body parts and organs that were on display and told me all about what they did. The lady is amazing – she is 77 years old and still sees patients three days a week.

The last day of my Aunt’s visit, we took a trip to Longwood Gardens. What a beautiful riot of summer colour! I’m always glad for a visit to Longwood Gardens.

Labor Day Monday I took the three kids to the Renaissance Festival. I hadn’t originally planned to go over Labor Day weekend, but on Sunday our friends told us they were planning on going the next day, so it seemed like as good a time as any to go. Plus our other weekends in September were going to be full of kids’ activities. We had a great time. We saw the jousting (twice!), fencing shows, acrobats, Shakespeare parodies. We listened to loud feet-stomping, heart expanding music, ate turkey legs, reveled in people watching. The weather was gorgeous – warm and sunny with a breeze at just the right moments. The kids got sticky with melted ice cream and dirty with playground mulch. We laughed and wandered and had an all around great time.

Dressed up in all the layers. You can’t see it, but she’s also wearing fairy wings.

I think I did really well pacing our day. Once I (like Oliver Burkeman says) get used to the idea that you can’t see everything, then I think I could enjoy the things I did see without the sense that I should be somewhere else. I had each of the kids pick one thing they really wanted to do, and then planned around that. The 12 year old wanted to eat fried food, the 7 year old wanted to see the jousting, the 4 year old wanted to ride the pony, I wanted to see shows and laugh. So I looked at the schedule and map and plotted it out as soon as I got there. I picked four shows to anchor our day – 12 noon jousting, 2:00pm Death Scenes from Shakespeare, 3:30p Vixes En Garde, 5pm Piper Jones show. Then in and around we ate turkey legs (side note – these have gotten really expensive! They are now $12 a pop. I guess I’m okay with it, but it’s a little alarming), went to the pirate playground, shopped, and went on the Pony ride. It also helped that we met up with our friends who had three kids, so the older kids could take off together while I stuck with the little kids.

Coordinating with my friends was a little difficult at first because with all the mass of humanity at the Ren Faire – and it was very crowded – my cell phone couldn’t find a way to make calls or send text messages. I think next time I need a better, more concrete plan ahead of time of where to meet people. One we met up with my friends, though, I really enjoyed Ren Fairing with friends.

Food on a stick- the 7 year old has sausage, the four year old has mac n cheese.

Oh, and the one thing I was the MOST excited about – they’ve put in water bottle fillers at our Ren Faire! For years, I’ve carted so four full Nalgenes with me to the Faire, because I’m too cheap to pay for water at the Faire. Well this year, there were three water bottle fillers (labelled “drinking water from the well”) Yay. Ren Faire gets better and better every year!

Inspirational Thought of the week: We are due for a huge decluttering effort at our house, so I’ve been listening to Decluttering and organizational podcasts for inspiration. Last week I was listening to A Slob Comes Clean’s episode called “How to Get Motivated” and she said

“There is no way to fail at better.”

Whoa. Her point is that even throwing away one piece of trash makes things better, and as long as you are moving towards “better” no matter how small the steps, you are not failing. I have to remember that when the prospect of decluttering (or anything large) feels overwhelming.

Kid Quote of the Moment:
The 7 year old can be a bit of a stubborn grumpy bear. But when something goes the way he wants it too, his delight is unparalleled. His latest catch phrase when something goes well – “Perfection wins again!”
I have no idea where he got that phrase from, but it makes me really happy every time he says it.

Grateful For:
-School Buses and school bus drivers. Amazingly, the school bus was on time in both the morning and the afternoon last week. Well except for one day when the bus broke down and they had to get a replacement. Even so, the bus ended up only being thirty minutes late, which seems pretty efficient given that they had to go find a whole other bus and driver. So I’m grateful for the school bus and school bud driver that takes my kid to school safely.

-A nice visit with my mom and my aunt. I don’t get to see my aunt very often, so it was lovely to have her stay with us for five nights.

– The kids’ piano teacher. A few weeks ago, while out for a walk with my 12 year old, she said to me, “You know what? Piano is my favorite extracurricular activity!” This made me really happy to hear because she loves music so much but there were a couple of years where we fought a lot about lessons and practicing. I give a lot of credit for this to her piano teacher who is so patient and positive with her but also challenges her.

Looking Forward To:

-Lunch with a friend. I start working on a show in October, with some hours here and there the next couple of weeks, so I want to schedule some fun social weekday things in September before my schedule makes that difficult.

-Planning our trip to Malaysia. On the way to Longwood Gardens, we listened to some podcasts about travel to Malaysia. (I like listening to destination/ travel podcasts for trip inspiration.) It really got me eager to start researching and planning the activities we will do with our four days there. It seems like all the really beautiful beaches are a bit farther than we want to go with just four days, so we’ll probably just stay in Kuala Lumpur.

-September declutter-palooza! As I mentioned above, we’ve decided that September will be a big month for decluttering since I will have a lighter schedule and am home more. The main areas are the attic and the current toy room, which needs to be cleaned out so we can put the guest bed in there and make the guest bedroom into the 12 year old’s room. The 12 year old currently shares a room with her two younger siblings. It’s partly because I can’t wrap my brain around setting up a room for her (so many logistics! Need to buy new furniture!), also partly because I like having all the kids on the same floor as us and giving the 12 year old her own room would mean putting her downstairs. Anyhow – I know I need to just get over this because a 12 year old should not have to share a room with her 7 year old brother and 5 year old sister if she can help it. (Although part of me thinks – my father shared a room with 7 siblings. But he lived in rural Taiwan. Life was different… Everyone looks at me like I’m a horrible mother when I tell them my 12 year old still shares a room with her siblings.) Anyhow, I’m excited about/dreading declutter-palooza. I know our house will be a lot better once we go through things and purge and shift. But… so much work, and I get attached to things. Hence listening to decluttering podcasts for inspiration. Maybe I should document the efforts here for some accountability.

What We Ate:

Monday: Stir fried eggplant with black bean sauce and tofu.

Tuesday: Tortellini with sausage. Fruit on the side.

Wednesday: Grilled chicken drumsticks and cucumber and cabbage noodle salad with black bean sauce.

Thursday: Pasta Salad. This was a kitchen sink meal. We came home on the late side and I didn’t have anything planned, so I chopped a bunch of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, and threw them in a bowl with some cooked pasta and canned tuna. Added a red wine vinegar vinegrette. It was much tastier than I thought it would be.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made) and Young Woman and the Sea, a recent film about Trudy Ederle, who in 1926 was the first woman to swim the English Channel, and she did it faster than any of the men before her. Disney sport movies are always predictably sentimental, and I am a sucker for that. I really liked this movie. I thought the story was inspiring and performances delightful to watch.

Saturday: Dinner out at The Olive Lounge after our trip to Longwood Gardens. I had a really delicious truffle pasta.

Sunday: Burgers and hot dogs and grilled zucchini. We had some friends over to grill- one of those super casual impromptu gatherings that you can have when you know your friends won’t judge you for not cleaning.

Monday: Grilled cheese and fruit. We didn’t get hime from the Ren Faire until almost 8pm so dinner was something quick and easy.

Onward to September! How was your holiday weekend? Have you ever had to share a room with a sibling? Pluses or minuses?

A Cute Kid Sayings and Three Haikus

We put up our Christmas tree this week, something that takes several days to complete. We get the tree one day. Then the lights go on, often when the tree comes home, but sometimes not. Then the ornaments go on. Then a few days later we remember to put the ornaments from our wedding on.

Most of our ornaments come from the Husband’s family. My late mother-in-law loved Christmas ornaments, and the Husband and his sister would get a new ornament every year. When my in laws passed away, we inherited all the ornaments, mostly because his sister lived abroad and it would have been difficult to get the ornaments to her. We have two large bins of ornaments and they run the gamut from classic balls to Romulan War Ships that light up.

The process has not been with not without its casualties. The baby managed to break at least three ornaments so far. I hate that the breakage happens, but I suppose banning kids from tree trimming is not an option.

The morning after we hung ornaments, the five year old said to me:
“Decorating the Christmas tree is an activity for everyone, not just grown ups. That’s why the Christmas tree has high branches and low branches!”

I love his five year old brain.

Three Haikus from This Cold week:

Waiting for the bus
4pm. Winter dusk brings
Moonrise and pink skies.

“Can you touch the sky?”
He asks of the bare tree limbs
Poking at the clouds.

Drafty door, splinters.
It’s a little bit broken,
Pieces we call home.