Between rehearsal and having to make slides for a supertitle gig today, this past week has had very little margin for breath or things outside of work and parenting. I had planned to write a February recap post, but it didn’t fit in the schedule this week. So maybe next week. Or maybe not since this is tech week.
BUT, it is the last week of collecting FIGS for Elisabeth, so I wanted to at least write about this weeks’ gratitudes.
One of my biggest FIG this week was this recital that I did supertitles for Sunday night.- so many things brought me joy and made me feel so lucky that I get to do this gig
The recital program itself was one of my favorite recitals I’ve ever worked on. The entire program was in English – Copland’s Old American Songs, a set of songs based on poetry of Langston Hughes, a set of songs set to Shakespeare, and one of my favorite song cycles – Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Songs of Travel, based on poems by Robert Louis Stevenson. English art song is my jam. I know that’s super nerdy, but there you go. I love that stuff, the elegance, the restraint, the tuneful melodies, the ways the words and music all make sense to me.
One thing that makes working on surtitles for an all English program so wonderful is that yes, I’m working on music, but I’m also working with poetry – like I literally get to read poetry for my job. How cool is that? I think my favorite line from this recital program was from Shakespeare’s Fear No More the Heat of the Sun: Golden lad and girls all must Like chimney-sweepers come to dust.
or this one from Langston Hughes’ poem Song to a Dark Virgin: Would that I were a flame, but one sharp, leaping flame to annihilate thy body, Thou dark one.
“annihilate they body,” I mean that phrase gives me goosebumps!
Or R.L. Stevenson’s poem, Whither Must I Wander, the first stanza of which:
Home no more home to me, whither must I wander? Hunger my driver, I go where I must. Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather: Thick drives the rain and my roof is in the dust. Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree, The true word of welcome was spoken in the door – Dear days of old with the faces in the firelight, Kind folks of old, you come again no more.
I think this poem would speak to anyone who has ever left home and returned to find it no longer the same.
Other FIGgy things from this gig: -I got to take the Metro to work. This is a new venue for us, and it is two blocks from the Metro. I could have driven, but I avoid driving in downtown DC if I can help it. I got to take Metro, read my book, and not be stressed out by traffic.
-The venue itself had beautiful acoustics – the singer’s voice rang clearly and warmly thought the hall. I got to operate the surtitles from the back of the auditorium so I could hear everything live. Usually on this gig, I am stuck in a booth somewhere and the sound is coming through a speaker.
-The singer and pianist did such a great job. The baritone has one of those beautiful velvet baritone voices that you just want to crawl into. I left the recital feeling really uplifted by the music and the singing. Isn’t Music amazing?
-The two encores – one was a song called “Going Home” which, if you are familiar with the Largo from Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony, is adapted from that tune. The song is, as you can tell from the title, full of nostalgia and weary wistfulness. The second encore was an aria from The Ballad of Baby Doe, which is an opera that is very rarely done, but which has a lot of significance for me personally and professionally, so it was lovely to hear a snippet of it. Usually by the time the encore rolls around, I’ve packed my bags and am ready to leave. This time, however, I stayed and was enraptured.
-Technology. So back in the day, before internet and what not, surtitles were done via slides – like those slides you put in a carousel and each opera took a whole stack of carousels. I was thinking that they probably didn’t do titles for recitals back then because it’s really expensive to do so many slides for a one off event. And I was thinking about all the technology that makes this job possible that wasn’t around twenty or thirty years ago. For example -being able to have the artist email me a pdf of the music, instead of having find a physical copy of the score and then photocopying it; PowerPoint – much sleeker than a whole bunch of carousels, but also super easy to make fixes or text alterations on the fly; Apple Music, so I can listen to the music ahead of time when trying to set cues; Forescore – the app I use to mark my scores, saving me the cost of having to print all those scores. I can’t imagine how/if anyone could do this job before these technologies that I might now take for granted.
-After the recital, as I was leaving I ran into an old colleague of mine. I didn’t think he would recognize me because it’s been over ten years since we worked together and he was much more senior than me in the company. But he recognized me and said hello and we chatted for a bit.
-People who come to voice recitals in general. As the audience was leaving, I heard one guy say to the woman that was with him, “How did you like your first art song recital?” She murmured something in response. and he said, “Yeah, people who come to voice recitals are a super specific subset of music lovers.” So I’m glad that enough people come to these voice recitals that the organization has been presenting recitals for 35 years.
It was a good gig. I was walking home from the Metro, I just felt an overwhelming sense gratitude that, even though I had to spend my day off from the opera working another job, I was pretty lucky that this other job brought me a lot of satisfaction and joy.
Okay – other FIG from the week, though –
-Elisabeth for organizing FIG-gy February and for collecting everyone’s FIGS. For everyine who shared FIGS. how lovely to share FIGS- your figs are my figs!
-The Metro doors opening again. Monday was another snow day. I’ve lost count, but it’s been enough snow days that school has been extended a whole week. Anyhow, since I didn’t have to drive the kids to work, I took the Metro to work. Just as I was getting off the elevator to the train platform, I saw the doors to the train start to close, and they shut just as I reached them. I resigned myself to waiting eight minutes for the next train. Then… the doors opened again! I looked down the platform and I saw the conductor leaning out of the window. He must have seen me and the other guy next to me and decided to let us on the train. I got on the train and got to work on time.
-a clean stack of freshly laundered underwear, just in time for tech week!
-The 13 year old walking down to the bus stop to pick up her younger siblings on an early release day, and then taking them to the park for an hour before bringing them home.
-Sleeping. I am really bad at going to sleep at a decent hour, but once I’m in bed, I don’t have any problems falling asleep. Sleep feels so good. I don’t know why I’m always avoiding it.
-Finding the pouch of my favorite pens that I thought I had misplaced.
-Sligo Creek. This is the creek that is near our house, alongside which is the trail/walking path. The other day, I was realizing that this creek is probably what led people to settle and built up a town in this area, and even before that, I’m sure Native Americans lived along it as well. I’m grateful that today the Creek, gives us a place for the kids to throw rocks and sticks and leaves in the water and watch them float away; it’s a place for ducks to swim, which we saw this week; it’s a place for us to take in nature despite our very urban lives.
The water is actually really disgusting, but still grateful for it all the same.
-The Husband doing all the things. Including filling the hot water boiler and cooking dinner all week. And for buying me a scone while he was out running errands.
-group chat with friends.
-The Kindergarten Concert, and being able to go. Thursday night was the Kindergarten music concert. The theme was dogs and each class sang two songs about dogs. The kids all dressed up like dogs with floppy construction paper ears. It was super cute. The 6 year old’s class sand BINGO was his Name, in French. And the whole thing was short – maybe only 30 minutes. I’m grateful that the concert was at 6:00pm so I could go over on my dinner break at work. It’s so hard to show up for things when I work the evenings, so I’m glad I could show up for this. Also grateful for elementary school music teachers.
-I came home one night to find this on the counter:
Yes, someone wrote “Kompost” on a covered tray of brownies…
-A sassy six year old. This exchange – exasperating at the time, but made me laugh afterwards: (For reference “Well, I want a pony and I can’t have one” is our standard response to our kids when they are being demanding and just need to wait.) 6 year old: I want hugs and kisses! Me: Well, I want a pony! 6 year old: Go to a farm and get one!
(To be clear, I wasn’t being a cold-hearted mom and denying my kid hugs and kisses at bedtime – I had something on the stove and needed her to wait. )
-Laughing a lot at work. There are parts of this rehearsal process that have been challenging, but even still the process has been a lot of joy thanks to the rest of the stage management team. The other day, at our end of day meeting, one of them said, “I don’t remember laughing so much during a rehearsal process, and most of it has been in this stage management office.” I think we all just have the same sense of humour and the ridiculous things in rehearsal makes us laugh rather than enrages us. I mean the hours suck and the pay is crap, so if we aren’t having fun, why do what we do?
-Another work FIG- the prop crew for moving a bunch of things for us from one room to another. The room we were rehearsing in had to be used for something else, so after rehearsal one night we had to pack up all our props and furniture and move to another room in the building – it was past 10pm and we were tired, so I asked the prop head who was coming in to set the room for the next thing in the morning if he could move the last of our stuff and they did!
-When the eight year old declared, “I love nature!” as we were walking to school.
-A book that is just sucking me in.
Okay – that’s a wrap on official FIGS, but you know I’ll keep being grateful for things every day and every week.
Scaling mountains of ice and snow to get to school.
The week ended with weather that was positively spring like with temperatures in the 50s and, more importantly, blinding sunlight and clear blue skies. I am of the opinion that the sun and sky have more effect on me then the actual temperature. So much light and colour, the world can’t help but to feel like it is warming up. I left the house without my bulky winter coat a couple times and it feel so freeing! But this coming week looks to be a little on the grey side. Today (Sunday) was oh so rainy and chilly.
Anyhow, it’s been a week back in the office. It was fine. Everyone is overwhelmed and doing three jobs, but morale is high and we are all excited to be doing opera again. I want to remember to carry this feeling and remember it when the show feels hard – we are so very very very lucky to continue to tell stories onstage for people.
Stephany had a post a few weeks ago about the how she tracks her habits and goals and I was inspired to write a similar post. I’m fascinated by the minutiae of other people’s planning/tracking, so maybe other people will be interested in my methods?
So my current planner stack features: -Hobonichi Weeks for day to day planning. (this might get it’s own post some day…) -Levenger Five Year Journal, which I try to write in every day, with varying results -A moleskin notebook that I use to track my reading; I write books that I read, and a few comments on them. This isn’t always a moleskin- it’s generally whatever blank notebook I have on hand when I run out of pages in the last one. -A Hobonichi Cousin that I use to track routines, life, habits, some longer form reflections.
This has pretty consistently been my stack for the past five or six years. Last year, I tried a different planner, trying to put the planning and reflection/tracking in the same book, but that lasted less then a month before I went back to my tried and true method. I’m mostly going to write about how I use the Hobonichi Cousin here.
First off – Meals, media, and time outside:
On the top I track tv and movies that we watch. A lot of these are family movie night movies. Hearts are things that I really enjoyed. Below that, I write down each day what we have for dinner. If we eat out, it gets a pink dot. If it is a vegan dinner, it gets a green dot. If it’s a meal we made at home that went over really well, I draw a heart so that I can go back and remember what was a hit with the family and make it again. The last section is where I track time outside – each box on the grid represents one hour. I started doing this when I was trying to do 1000 hours outside, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to that in one year, so I now just track to see what is trending.
The Weekly Spread – Here I time track, writing down what I did every day in 30 minute segements.
This was a very light week for paid work.
I have a loose colour coding: Green = work that I get paid to do Purple = unpaid labor and family time (ie chores, making dinner, driving carpool, hanging out as a family) Orange= time that is just for me, where I ignore (or don’t have to think about) the kids or family Blue = Sleep. Also on the left hand side, I write the books that I’m reading.
This is the section i’m the most inconsistent in filling out; I find I have a lot of nebulous time that is not accounted for….
365 Day Tracker – this is where I log my daily yoga. Here I also colour code according to how much yoga I do – pink=10 mins, orange = 15 mins, yellow = 20 mins, green=25 mins, and blue = 25 mins. There is something really fun and satisfying about this page. I sometimes think I should track something else for 365 days, but I’m not sure what that would be.
Daily Pages – This is where I write longer reflections that don’t fit into the 5 year journal. When I travel, this is where I write daily travel reflections, gather ticket stubs and what not. If I go to a museum or see a play, musical, etc., this is where I write my thoughts about what I saw. If I need to do a larger brain dump to problem solve something it goes here. I write haikus here for my weekly haiku project. These daily pages also have a blank page at the start of each month and that’s where I write my monthly highlights/ low lights/ lessons learned.
The Monthly Spread – This is where the bulk of my tracking is. The categories I track here are mostly inspired by things I learned when I took The Science of Well Being, a free course on Coursera that is also known as the Yale Happiness Course because it is taught by a Yale Professor, Laurie Santos. Each week of the course, Santos talked about one thing that has been scientifically proven to make people “happier”, and gives assignments based on that topic. I took this course during the pandemic and it was really helped me focused on little things that I could be mindful about that could make life feel fuller, especially at a time that was really felt like a stressful daily grind. A lot of what her findings show is that people are really bad at predicting what makes them happy- the things people think they want are often inflated in their minds, leading to disappointment if it doesn’t come about. People find the most contentment when they focus on personal connection and what is right in front of them.
blank at the beginning of the year.
January. The first eleven days are blank because we were in Taiwan/I was getting over jetlag/feeling overwhelmed.
I like tracking things here because I can write a little more on what each thing is, allowing for a bit more reflection.
So what I track here: -Hours outside (yes, I know I put this in two places, but I wanted also to see how much time I was spending outside on a daily basis.) -Gratitude: at least one thing I’m grateful for each day. -Savoring: one thing I take time to slow down and savor each day. -Connection: at least one person I connected with that day. Santos has a week where she talks about the benefits of positive interaction. Sometimes for me, this is a long conversation over dinner, sometimes it is small talk in the grocery line or just a text exchange with a friend. -Brush/floss: Okay, this one isn’t from Laurie Santos, but I used to be terrible at brushing and flossing, so I started making myself check a box for it. I’m not usually a box-checker, but in this case it really worked for me. One check for brushing, one for flossing. -Exercise – I take this to mean movement. So the daily yoga and any work outs or runs I do go here, but also if I take a walk at lunch time, go skating with the kids, etc. -Create: Here I write if I do something creative that day. To me this means write a blog post, compose a haiku, play piano, spend time painting, cook a fancy new recipe – basically anything where I create something from nothing. -Anticipation: I write something I’m looking forward to. This wasn’t part of Santos’ course, but I read a NYTimes article about how anticipation boosts happiness so I added it to the list.
Along the bottom I track some of the habits I want to do this year: -Paint 26 pictures -Write 1 haiku a week -visit a museum -go on a hike -do the Post Sunday crossword puzzle every week.
As a side note, some things that Santos talks about which improve well-birng that I don’t track: -Sleep. My sleep is shit. I’m working on this, but I’ve tried tracking sleep and tracking does not motivate me to go to bed earlier, so I stopped. -Meditation. I’ve tried, Lord know I’ve really really really tried meditation. I just can’t figure it out. -Acts of kindness. This one was really hard for me to do mindfully without feeling performative. Some days I feel like the kindest thing I can do is hug my children and tell them I love them every single day, so I try to at least do that.
So that’s my system. I’m not a box checker, as I mentioned, so I don’t necessarily do these things to cross them off the list. But I do find it useful to see what things I’m making room in my life for. If I’m looking at my tracking spread and I notice I didn’t write something in a particular column for several days in a row, I will make an effort to find time to do it. But also, it helps when I’m in really busy time of the year to remind myself that there are certain things I still manage to do, even if it is as simple as brushing my teeth.
Anyhow, speaking of creating – here are my paintings from January:
This was from our hotel room in Beitou, Taiwan. Picture’s blurry because I didn’t actually take a real picture of this one and now I don’t know where it is….
The top picture is an exercise from Everyday Watercolor by Jenna Rainey; it’s a book of daily watercolor exercises. The bottom picture uses the salt technique where you sprinkle salt on wet paint to create a blotchy effect- it’s loosely based on a tutorial I found on YouTube on painting snowflakes.
Grateful For (FIGs, Week 2) – shout out to Elisabeth’s February FIGS collective, where she is gathering people’s gratitudes this month. These are some of my FIGs from last week.
-Libraries and printing. We aren’t fully set up with our IT at work yet, and I needed to print our music scores. So I went to the library to print them out. The process is so easy – log into the website with my library card, upload the documents and then go to any library and print. There is a thing where I have to have the librarians put a “fine” on my card to pay for the printing, but once I print the job, I pay off the “fine”. Also, the first 15 pages are free. This is such a great service.
-Sunlight in the morning. On Tuesday, I did my daily morning yoga in my bedroom instead of the basement. I pulled up my shade, and as I was doing my upward dog, I noticed that I could see pink sky when I had been used to the sky still being inky black at 7am in the morning. The days are starting to get longer.
-On the other side of the day, I walked out of work at 5:30pm one day and it was still light outside. After all those days of being stuck at home with the snow, the longer stretches of daylight are like fingers of hope and growth and the end of the tunnel.
-Our tax guy. I had to fill out new tax paperwork as part of the transition at work, and I was so very confused by the form. So I sent my tax guy an email and he told me exactly what to write in. Thank goodness.
-Getting to watch the 14 year old play basketball twice -once for her middle school team and once on her rec team. Her face always lights up when she sees me at her games, and I hope mine does too.
-Getting to pick up the kids after school. That moment they get off the school bus lifts my heart. I hope I never get tired of my kids coming home.
-To that end – school bus drivers. Some of the roads still are barely passable because the snow has not been cleared out to the curb. Grateful for the bus drivers that navigate that and get our kids to and from school safely.
-That quiet sliver of time between getting home with the kids and starting dinner. A few times last week, the 6 year old and I got the watercolours out and made a piece of art or two. A relaxing transition from the work/school day into the evening.
-Crisp clean sheets to slide between after a long day.
-Birdsongs and fat robins hopping in the snow. Spring is coming.
-Leaving for school a little on the early side and not having to rush up the path. There was time for the kids to pause and throw sticks in the still frozen creek, to tromp through the snowier path to school, and to summit the ice mountain that still sits in the parking lot between our path and the doors to school. (see photo at the top of the post!)
-A quiet office before the rest of my team arrives. I try to get to work half an hour before the rest of the stage managers get in; I love the stillness of the office in the morning and the ability to knock off some tasks without interruption.
-The Husband for helping make a tough situation better. We found out this week that when the 14 year old filled out her high school choice form, she had forgotten to also apply for the high school program that she wanted. (It’s a program that allows high school seniors to take a full year of classes at the community college for free.) So she got assigned to the school, but not to the program. I have to admit that the whole process was kind of confusing; we had thought you filled out the interest for after getting assigned to the high school. We were wrong. There were tears. So many tears. And yelling. And despair. All the stages of grief. This program was the whole reason she wanted to go to the school. Well, the Husband did some digging and it turns out that if she goes to the school counselor in the first week of school, she can still fill out an interest form for the program. So all is not lost. Thank goodness. I’m grateful that the Husband was persistent and called and emailed until he got an answer on the issue.
Looking Forward To:
-Starting rehearsal this week. Ready to dive in.
-Lunar New Year. It’s Tuesday. I have to work in the evening so no big celebration for us (plus it’s Taco Tuesday), but I will wear red and I did buy pineapple cakes, so I’ll bring those to work.
-Just started this audiobook, a memoir of growing up in Derry as one of eleven children being raised by a single father. It’s funny in that stolidly ironic way. On of my favorite bits is that whenever anyone asks O’Reilly’s father how he managed to raise 11 children on his own, he says, “Well, which of them would you have me give back?”
-Also started reading this book – I feel like it’s going to be the perfect read as I wait out the last of the cold winter:
What We Ate: Monday: Chinese leftovers from Super Bowl Sunday.
Taco Tuesday: Middle school tacos – basically ground beef tacos.
Wednesday: Curry chickpeas with scallion and cilantro. From Milk Street Fast and Slow, their Instant Pot cookbook. Eaten with rice and paratha. We’ve discovered this year paratha from the frozen section of HMart. You cook the paratha on the griddle and it’s magical. Vegan.
Thursday: Breakfast sandwiches.
Friday: Pizza (take out) and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. This 2017 film with Ryan Reynolds as a protection agent (bodyguard) who is hired to guard a notorious assassin played by Samuel L. Jackson. The movie was hilarious, with Reynolds and Jackson in top notch bantering form. Greatly enjoyed this movie. There is a lot of swearing and shooting in it, though.
Saturday: Dumplings and green beans.
Sunday: We went over to a friends’ house for a casual afternoon gathering, and ate lots of hummus and baba ganouj and fruit and Valentine’s candy. It was a lovely time – the big kids and little kids played together, then the tween/teens put on music and started performing K-Pop dance numbers. At one point, one of our hosts, who is a musician, started playing Part of Your World on the piano and the girls did an improv dance – I think they were all some form of seaweed. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon. But all to say, dinner was … undefined. I filled up on snacks so wasn’t hungry when we got home. Of course the little kids were, so I boiled some ravioli and doused it with olive oil and parmesan and that’s what they ate.
I hope you have a sunny week! We have a lot of evening rehearsals this week, so I’m girding my loins for that. But I’m excited to get started with rehearsals.
How/what do you track or record? How do you transition from work to home life in the evenings?
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Through New York), I love a stage before a show!
This was my last week “off” before starting a new show. It wasn’t really “off” because I had emails and paperwork to go through and I’ve started thinking about staffing for next season and I had a supertitle gig on Sunday to prep for. But, I was able to work from home and I didn’t have to be in rehearsal so it was nice to have the flexibility. The kids were home Monday (no snow but the school district deemed the sidewalks and roads not sufficiently ploughed/shoveled for kids to make it to school safely), and then a delayed start Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday, however, it was business as usual. The school year has been extended by one day and there is a no-school day in March that will now be a school day, but there is something like five days of school that need to be made up, so I’m curious where the other days will come from.
The highlight of the week was going to New York to see a musical with the 14 year old. It was Broadway Week so you can get 2 for 1 ticket deals. last year we had gone go see Hadestown during Broadway week and it was such a fun adventure that I decided to go again this year. This year I just took the 14 year old, as a birthday present, pulling her out of school on a Wednesday for a mid-week escape.
Sunrise over the Susquahanna.
We took the 8:10am train up, arriving in New York at 11:30am. The trip up was pretty smooth- I got some work done and had to take a meeting on the train. The best thing on the train was this group of senior women who were clearly on some kind of group trip. They settled into seats next to us and the proceeded to bring out the most lavish buffet I’d ever seen on a train – breakfast sandwiches (“bacon or sausage?” they asked each other), strawberries, grapes, homemade muffins. All on these eaten off delicate gold trimmed plates. They were most certainly living their best lives. I don’t know why they were going to New York or even if that was their final destination, but they were having such a good time.
Upon arriving in New York, our first stop was to get bagels from Best Bagels, four blocks from Penn Station. The bagels there are huge and fluffy, crispy on the outside and soft and chewy inside. I got a jalapeno everything bagel with bacon and scallion cream cheese and the 14 year old got an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese. We took our bagels to Bryant park and ate at the tables there. I was worried it would be too snowy to eat outside – the city was still ankle deep in snow in places and all over you could see work crews clearing the snow – but the tables and chairs in Bryant Park were clear and even though it was chilly, the sun was out and the day was cheery. (I took a lot of food pictures on this trip; when I first asked the 14 year old what she wanted to do besides see the show, she said she wanted to eat lots of tasty food. We certainly did our best.)
After we finished our bagels we went to Katagiri, a Japanese grocery store that had onigiri. Onigiri (Japanese rice balls wrapped in seaweed, often with meat or veggies stuffed inside) is one of the the 14 year old’s favorite food. We’ve always had them from grab and go places like 7-11 in Taiwan or from the boba tea shop or H-Mart. The onigiri at Katagiri made those pale in comparison. First of all they had so many different kinds – salmon, spicy tuna, veggie, eel…, a whole display case full. And they were huge – almost the size of my fist – and the rice was fluffy yet still sticky enough for the onigiri not to fall apart. I got a ume plum one and a shiso one and the 14 year old got a salmon one. They were so tasty and still a little warm.
We munched on the onigiri as we made our way to our next destination- Kinokuniya, the Japanese Manga/Book/Stationary store. We had visited here last year and I love popping in to see what they had. I didn’t end up buying anything, but it’s always fun to browse.
We left spent about twenty minutes in Kinokuniya before walking over to the theatre. Our seats at the theatre were next to a a bunch of theatre buffs. Next to us was a gay couple, one of whom had seen Wicked ten times. In front of us was two ladies in their thirties who had come from Buffalo and Florida for Broadway week. I loved listening to them talk and gossip about shows they’ve seen and Broadway stars.
We had seats in the second row of the balcony. Broadway theatres are smaller than the theatres where we see opera, so even though we sat in the balcony, I still felt like I was very close to everything. I will say, though, next time I might try sitting at a lower level, even if it’s farther back. I found with this show, the actors tended to direct their energy out in front of them, so I felt like I was watching much of the action from above rather than directly in the line of it. It’s not a big difference, but I’m curious how a show would feel from a different angle.
The show itself was wonderful. It’s a two person show, about a British guy and an New Yorker. His dad is marrying her sister and the whole situation is messy and complicated. The show was funny and sweet and moving – the best kind of rom com. The two performers brought so much energy and brilliance and heart to their performances. It must be a lot of pressure to have a two person show – so exposed, you know. I loved, though, how, even though it was just the two of them onstage, they made me believe that their world was full of so many other people.
The guy next to us said, “Someone wrote this. They put it on stage, and now it’s on Broadway. How amazing is that?” Amazing indeed.
After the show, we walked back to the train station. On the way, we picked up some Chinese food for dinner to eat on the train home (noodles and dumplings from The Handpulled Noodle in Hell’s Kitchen) and also got some boba tea as well (from Coco Bubble Tea). We also swung by a bakery to pick up some treats for the rest of the family. I had looked up bakeries near us and found Posh Pop Bake Shop, which had some beautiful desserts. I didn’t realize until later that it was a gluten free bakery. We came home with some apple cider donuts, a salted caramel brownie, and a birthday cake cookie.
I’m loving these little day trips into New York. To be honest, I find New York overwhelming – the people and the rush and all the things for sale, all the options for things to do, to see, to eat. Just walking down the street is an adventure filled with so many characters and stories. One of my favorite moments was in the evening as we were walking back to the train station. We heard a phone ring, I patted my phone, but it wasn’t mine. It was the guy next to me, slick looking guy in a business suit and long wool coat.
“Yeah,” he says impatiently into the phone. “I’m on my way. I’m nearly there. Look I’m on Seventh already.”
We were on Eighth.
Not that I’ve never fudged my location when running late….
Dusk in NYC. Something about all the tall buildings make the view of sky very precious. Golden, almost literally.
Anyhow, it was all in all a nice day. Next time I might opt for an earlier morning train. The 8:10am train was easy to get to, but also it didn’t quite leave us enough time to explore before the show. I had chosen the 8:10am train because it was $38 for that leg and the 7am train was $60. But I think the extra money is worth it to have more time at the beginning of the day. I’m hoping to make a Broadway Week trip to NYC an annual thing I do with one (or more) of the kids.
Grateful For: For the Month of February, Elisabeth is gathering people’s gratitudes for her gratitude collective, FIGS. I already regularly write a gratitude list in my weekly posts, but this month, I’m going to make an effort to write at least seven per week, though I’ve found that some days when I’m writing them out, I have so many more than one each day. Anyhow – some FIGS for this week that was:
-One more snow day. Yes, everyone was starting to get a little feral after ten days at home, but I was actually glad to have one more day cozy with the kids. We shoveled some snow, built up our snow fort, met the Husband for lunch, got boba, went to the library (got the 9 year old his own library card!), went to the park and slid down icy slopes on our butts (because I didn’t think to bring the sleds.). I work so many weekends, that I don’t often get an obligation-free day home with the kids, so the snow day felt like a gift of time with them.
She wanted the snow fort to be taller than she was when kneeling. Unfortunately I didn’t do a good job with the construction and on the next slightly warm day, the snow melted enough for the walls to fall in.
-A warm house after a cold walk.
– getting to go to New York with the 14 year old. I had such a good time, and I do genuinely like hanging out with my kid.
-Google for when I don’t know what I’m doing in PowerPoint, and people who provide tutorials to tell me how to do it. I use PowerPoint to my my supertitle slides, but I’ve never really learned it. Mostly just noodled around until it did what I wanted it to do. But for those times when noodling doesn’t work, I’m grateful that I can put what I’m trying to do and 90% of the time I will find a step by step tutorial that teaches me how to do it.
– Laughter. There was an article in the New York Times this week, The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle, that talked about the social importance of laughing. It’s an interesting read, but really what got me was the various videos in the article of babies laughing. I dare you to click over and not at least smile at the pure baby joy. Laughter feels so good. I don’t often realize that I haven’t had a good belly laugh recently, until I do. One thing that made me belly laugh was last week – the 14 year old has a Bark Phone, through which we can set parental controls and also Bark will flag content that it thinks we should be aware of. Well, the latest thing is that Bark now give us a summary (clearly AI generated ) of the 14 year old. The Husband read it to me and we were rolling on the floor laughing. Apparently Bark knows our kid is well rounded because she spends equal amounts of time on Webtoons, listening to music, and on Libby. The kicker, though was when it told us that her most frequent contact was John Smith (not the real name!). “John Smith is often included in communication with ‘Mom’,” Bark relayed, “indicating that [14 year old] is open with her communication.” Friends, “John Smith” is the Husband. We howled with laughter, thinking about how Bark seemed to be hinting that John Smith was some nefarious stranger.
-Friends who help celebrate the Husband’s milestone birthday on Superbowl Sunday. I’m not the best at planning parties, so I’m glad that people come over and make it about the company and not the party. A few die hards did stay until the end of the game, including one friend from Boston who was holding out hope for the Patriots. We actually set up a second tv in another room to play the Olympics in case any of our friends weren’t into the Superbowl. I drifted between rooms, but I did watch the half time show. I wasn’t very familiar with Bad Bunny, and wow. It was unlike any half time show I’ve ever seen before – there was such specificity to the whole act, and it was full of people looking like they were having a great time. I kind of loved it.
-That dark chocolate quinoa crisps are back at Costco!
– All the people who make middle school sports possible. I got to catch the first half of the 14 year old’s basketball game this week, and I’m just so grateful for the Coach (who is the school nurse), and the people who put in time to ref the games, and our middle school sports coordinator. At a time when playing sports can be so expensive, I’m really grateful that through the schools there is a no/low cost way for kids to play sports.
-All the people out there who are steadily chipping away at the snowcrete, clearing sidewalks and cutaways that are thick with ice, even a week after the snow.
Looking Forward To: -Contra Dancing this week. We’re going to try to go to the Thursday night contra dance.
-Familiar colleagues coming into town for my next show. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again.
-Pomelo! We went to HMart and picked up some fruit – they had pomelos for Lunar New Year, so we bought one. They also had mangosteen, which we had in Malaysia last winter. It’s of course not as fresh as in Malaysia, but it’s still tasty. Also … I didn’t really look at the price when I put it in the cart, and ended up spending $37 dollars on 2.5 lbs of mangosteen. Ooops. Sorry/not sorry. I kind of look on it as an indulgence – some people buy fancy clothes and cars. I buy fruit.
Pomelo and mangosteen.
-A water heater/boiler! Not the HVAC kind; the making tea kind. We ordered a Zojurishi Hot water boiler to replace our kettle. It seems awfully fancy, but I’m excited. I’m most looking forward to not being late out the door because I’m waiting for hot water to fill my tea mug.
-Continuing to read the Washington Post. The news about the layoffs at the Post this week was devastating especially since I consider the Post my hometown newspaper. In addition to our online subscription, we get the Sunday paper delivered to our door every week- there is something I love about the newspaper appearing on our driveway, the kids immediately pulling out the comics while I look at the arts section, and then leafing through to the Metro, Travel, Book and Front page. As terrible as it feels to “support” Bezos and whatever he is doing to American journalism, it is inconceivable not to support the journalists. I felt very similar when people told me they were not coming to the opera anymore because the institution where we performed was being taken over and going in a direction they didn’t agree with. Look, I’m not going to tell people where to spend their money, but to me the art isn’t about the building it’s in, it’s about the stories that we can tell, the ways we connect and the work that is being done, day after day by the people who believe in the medium. So just as I hope people will continue to come to the opera and go to the Symphony (what another terrible blow there was this week for the Symphony), I will continue to read the Post and look forward to it appearing on my driveway every Sunday.
What We Ate: Monday: Ethiopian food. I made misir watt and yellow lentils and then fried up some potatoes to go with since not all the kids like injera. (The injera I bought from the store). The yellow lentils were a little soupy when I first opened up the Instant Pot, but they thickened over time. Vegan.
Taco Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos
Wednesday: This was our New York adventure day. The Husband took the two younger kids out for Korean fried chicken while the 14 year old and I were away.
Thursday: Golden Potato Leek Soup from NY Times Cooking and biscuits. I had some potatoes to use up. I added corn and peas to the soup, to give it a little more variety. I also threw in the leftover yellow lentils from Monday to give it a bit of protein. Two family members loved this soup, two family members said it had too much stuff in it.
Friday: Pizza (The Husband made)+ Central Intelligence – a 2016 funny buddy caper/action movie starring Kevin Hart and the Rock. It was pretty funny and the performances were fun, though the plot was confusing. Afterwards we watched the Olympic opening ceremonies.
Saturday: Tortellini with red sauce and leftover salad.
Sunday: Super Bowl Sunday. Also a big milestone birthday for the Husband. We ordered Chinese food from his favorite take out place, pretzels, cake. And lots of other snacks and sweets.
On that – can I say some random thoughts on the Opening Ceremonies – -I missed the first ten minutes and was super confused by the Opening Ceremonies taking place in three different locations. It took me a while to realize that those weren’t just different sets that people were parading through, but actually different parts of Italy. -I want to vacation in a small Italian city now. I mean, yeah, there is clearly part of the Olympics that is one big travel ad for the country hosting. And tell you what – it works on me. -Can we talk about the opening ceremony country looks? How cozy were some of the team sweaters? I’m looking at you Norway and Ireland. Also those thick scarves worn by Great Britain – I want one. I also wondered if people wear their outfits after the Olympics. I certainly would. The Canadian puffer vests looked very impractical but such a fun statement. (though maybe not impractical – I read that they can also be used as pillows!) Oh and the French contingent all looked like they were on Hoth. -I was VERY annoyed when Guinea-Bissou and Haiti was marching and NBC split the screen over to talk to the American athletes waiting to march. I mean Haiti had TWO athletes and Guinea-Bissou had ONE. The network couldn’t give them our full attention? -How fun was all the choreography? All I could think about was, “How do you even rehearse something that big???” I loved how it was clearly designed to be impactful from far away – what looks on the camera to be chaotic mass of swirling people, when seen from a gazillion steps back, is a beautiful purposeful swirl of color. Also – shout out to the few times you saw the crew pop out to move things. I always get excited when I see stagehands. -The nine year old is participating in his school Geobowl. The theme this year is Europe and the opening ceremonies was a fun chance to get him to start thinking about all the different countries. When a European country marched, I would point it out on the map and tell him the capital. It’s okay to stay up til 11am if it’s educational, right? -The Olympic flame coming through and lighting the cauldron. Made me tear up. Thinking about journey and history and past becoming present…. gets me every single time.
Well that’s the news from this end. The snow continues to blanket our world here, but I hear sunshine and warmer weather is around the corner.
What makes you laugh? Did you watch any Olympics? The Super Bowl?
Last week was my first week without a show to work on, and, as always, there’s a period of readjustment/ re-entry after being gone in the evenings and weekends so much. Things are not where I expect them to be, routines have shifted, some routines haven’t shifted yet I need to figure out how to fit back into them. Expectations have shifted. That’s a big one, I’m learning. When the family doesn’t expect me home, it’s a bit of a shift when I am all of a sudden around.
Some delightful things last week, though…
-Social plans with friends – Happy hour (or rather happy three hours) with my friends from the bus stop who I don’t see anymore because of return to office orders. It was great to catch up and I had a delicious dill pickle brined fried chicken sandwich. Another day, I had lunch with other friends whom I used to work with but now don’t see anymore.
-Randomly running into one of those lunch friends four days later at the skating rink with our kids. Isn’t it so delightful when you randomly run into a friend? And it was so nice to meet her son. I have friends who I meet through our kids and it’s nice to have friends that were friends before kids and you finally meet their kids and it’s like meeting a mini version of your friend.
-Going to Ikea with my parents. Having lunch at the cafe where the light is so soft and makes everything look good. Also – how much do I love wandering through Ikea! All the lives and possibilities it’s trying to sell me? Everything so practical. And finding the exact chair we wanted in their clearance room for $17, marked down from $35.
It was a very rainy day – felt very Scandanavian.
-The 5 year old was finally baptized. The Husband is Catholic, so this is something that we had intended to do in 2020, but pandemic and then procrastination. And here we are. I’m not Catholic, but I do love rituals of tradition and gathering.
-It’s also Breakfast Smoothie Season here. The kids have been having berry smoothies (cashews – though I’m temporarily out, frozen berries, kefir, honey, chia seeds, banana, ice.) and I’ve been having green smoothies (kale, ginger, honey, vanilla, kefir, banana). The other day, the 5 year old said to me, “You have an Elphaba smoothie and I have a Galinda smoothie!” Side note, I think we will be watching Wicked for movie night soon.
Summertime….For the first time in a while, I’m not working during the summer. Even though the prospect of nine weeks at home seems to stretch into the void, I know it will fly by quickly and before you know it, we’ll be back in school. I don’t want to arrive at the end of August feeling like I didn’t have an intentional summer. Which is not to say everything needs to be planned – I just want to have a good mix of fun, productive projects, active moments, and relaxing time. And connection. I am fast realizing that our summers as a family of 5 are limited. We only have four or five years left before the oldest one is launched and off to college. I want to set building blocks so that we feel connected as a family.
Things that are already on the calendar: -Swim Team for the 13 year old, pre-team for the 8 and 5 year olds. This means 5 evenings a week at the pool for most of June and July. -Trip to South Africa with the 13 year old. (10 Days) -Weekend in New York City to meet up with the Husband’s sister. -Summer Camp -for the 8 year old: 2 weeks of theatre camp. For the 13 year old, 2 weeks of basketball camp and 3 weeks of theatre camp -continuing with piano lessons (13 year old and the 8 year old), and basketball workouts (13 year old), and skating lessons (8 year old and 5 year old) and agility class and/or gymnastics (5 year old) -five days at a Taiwanese American cultural camp for the 5 and 8 year olds. They are going with my mother. I don’t really know what goes on there, but it’ll be their first time away without me or the Husband and I’m excited/nervous about how they’ll take it. -the 5 year old’s last day of preschool will be the end of June. (SOB!). I’ve sent the notice. I’m feeling a little sad and wistful and I’m regretting that her last day will be while I’m away, but it didn’t make sense to keep her in longer since she’s going to Taiwanese American kids camp the day before I get back.
Other Summer Things on my Menu of Activities: I’m calling this a “menu” because these are things I’ve brainstormed for this summer – some fun activities, some life tasks. It’s not a “to do” list or any kind of mandate by any means. -Time at the Pool (aside from swim team time – I would love to swim some laps myself. Maybe even take the kids to the county pool where there are water slides.) -Getting the two younger kids to learn how to swim confidently and independently. -Make a family summer play list. -Family biking time – teaching the 5 year old to ride without training wheels and getting the 8 year old a new bike. (he is currently using a pink and turquoise hand me down bike with broken pedals.) -Teaching the 8 year old how to tie his shoes. -Boba taste test. There are a lot of boba shops around here. The 13 year old and I have a plan to try all the places and pick our favorite. -Camping. -Hiking. -Visit the library and read lots of books -Find a perfect pair of sandals. This is on the summer list every year for the past three years or so, but I love my current El Naturalista Zumaia sandals so much that I always I manage to squeeze one more summer out of them. I would like to get a new pair of sandals before I leave for South Africa. -make paletas. I borrowed some books from the library with recipes I want to try. -Mow the lawn regularly. I don’t like yardwork, and the Husband does most of it, so I’m vowing to take on some of it. -host friends for grilling/dinner -Lunches and meet ups with friends, particularly mom friends and former federal worker friends. -Outdoor concerts and music -eat lots of peaches. (Last year we regularly got peaches from The Peach Truck, but they aren’t delivering nearby this year. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth the 30 minute drive for a 25 lb box of amazing peaches.) -Take the kids to a rock climbing gym or to the adventure park. -Take the kids to the local water park. -Closet audit. Get rid of things I no longer wear. -Watercolor postcard project. Paint and send mail. (Do you want a postcard from me? I feel like if I collect addresses, I’m committing myself to doing this one. Which would be a good thing.) -Go school supply shopping in early August. Also Maryland’s tax free week is the beginning of August, so if we need any clothes or shoes, that would be a good time to go shopping for those. (Although the kids usually get fresh shoes for summer…) -Teaching the kids some life skills (cooking, touch typing, how to tell time, maybe cursive – is that too ambitious?)/ making sure they get into the habit of doing their chores. -Eating outside when possible. -Have a screen free day or two. -See some opera. Even though I won’t be working for the opera company I worked for last summer, i do want to see some of their productions. -movie afternoons, either at home or at a movie theatre. -Buy produce at a farmer’s market, or a farm stand. Make yummy food from our purchases. -Going to the County Fair, riding all the rides and seeing the animals. -Work-wise – we have union negotiations coming up this summer. I want to be an active participant in that. -I also have a few work meetings scattered here and there that I’ll need to attend. -Decluttering projects: The sewing corner, my desk corner, the medicine/linen closet in the bathroom, the pile of outgrown clothes/hand me downs in the 13 year old’s bedroom. The toy room. I’m posting a picture to remind myself what a dire situation these places are. Brace yourselves, it’s kind of awful. I hope I’ll have some “after” pictures come August.
Potential Summer Stressors: -Money. When I’m not working, money is of course a little tighter. I’m going to try to pick up one off gigs when I can, but to be honest, I don’t love event work; it pays really well, but is highly stressful for me. -Not having enough alone time. I will always have at least one child at home with me this summer, and sometimes I just want to sit and read and not have to fix a snack or read someone a book or referee a fight or what not. I’m lucky that my kids are pretty self sufficient, but even still, it’s not nothing. -Being hot. Being in the sun. Being in the car when I’m hot. This always just puts me in a bad mood. At least I won’t have a soul sucking commute like I did last summer, though there will be time in the car because of camp drop offs/pick ups. -mosquitoes. -house projects with the house we manage. -Getting the kids to actively participate in chores or family activities/ fighting about screen time. I fully recognize the need for them to have time to chill and decompress, but also want to balance that with a sense of responsibility. -Eating dinner at the pool all the time and keeping pool time organized in general. It’s a lot of work to pack for the pool. Last year, I got it down to a good routine, but every year is a little different. One of the big shifts this year is I have to reconsider where we dry the swim stuff. We used to dry it in the lower bathroom, but now that is the 13 year old’s bathroom, so it is going to be inconvenient for her to have to always move the stuff.
Now that I’ve written all that down, I can see summer as full of possibilities and also some road blocks. I think what will help with the road blocks: -Researching low cost activities. We are lucky there are a lot of free things to do in the area. -Sitting down and making a plan to do those low cost activities. Put them on the calendar. -Being brave and saying, “Yes” to any gigs that I can work. -Having a structure to my days – block in rest time and adventure time and chore time. Or acknowledge that some days will only be two of those three categories. Or even just one. -Have lots of cool treats and beverages in the fridge and freezer. -Meal plan. I do this a lot anyway. -Making a screen time plan with the kids. -Embrace mornings as calm times. Embrace evenings as family time. -Remember that the goal is we a feel connected and ready for the new school/work year in September.
Grateful For This Week: -Stories from my parents. I’m going to admit that my parents and I don’t have a super easy relationship. It’s loving and supportive, but the conversation has never really flowed easily between us. I’m sure I need to unpack that a little -I feel like it has something to do with the culture that my parents are from (very patriarchal/valuing filial piety) and the culture I grew up in (less so, and resentful of filial piety) Anyhow, on Mother’s Day, the New York Times published article called “25 Questions to Bring You Closer to Your Mom.” Every so often in the days that followed, I would ask my mom and dad one of the questions, and the answers were surprising and insightful. Some of my favorites: “What was your nickname growing up?” “What are some of your favorite memories of the two of us?” “What’s the worst advice you ever received about motherhood?” “Who made you feel seen when you were growing up?” I thought this one was particularly interesting because both my parents said when they were growing up, they didn’t want to be seen, because that meant they were in trouble. This made my heart ache a little.
-Dog Man books in the Little Free Library. The 8 year old LOVES Dog Man books. I love not having to pay full price for them.
-Sleep. Trying to catch up and having the time to catch up and having a bed in which to catch up. I’ve been noticing this past year that I get incredibly tired the day or two before I get my period. Like “in bed by 9:30pm” tired. (I’m usually in bed at midnight most nights). I’m grateful I had the time and space to be able to just sleep last week when I was premenstrually tired.
-Cherry Coke and a chocolate chip cookie. An awesome combination.
-The 5 year old getting into the French Immersion program. This means that she will get to go to the same school as the 8 year old. Thank goodness. I mean we would have figured out three kids at three different schools – and we will have to in a few years – but I’m grateful that that is a future me problem.
-The Husband for clearing everyone out of the house when I had a splitting headache. He took the 8 year old to soccer practice and also convinced the other two kids and my parents to ride along. I lay in a dark and quiet room and popped a bunch of Advil and was feeling much more normal when they came home two hours later.
-That the rain let up just in time. We were supposed to meet our friends for a picnic and a show last Friday, and just as I was stepping out the door, the rain came down in unrelenting sheets, making driving pretty scary, and I thought, “Uh oh, so much for a picnic!” But the rain was actually quite isolated and the skies at the park was clear and the picnic tables were relatively dry and we had a lovely picnic lunch and then went to see a student musical theatre showcase and it was quite a fun evening.
-Park benches along a trail and the the perfect not to hot/not too cold weather to sit on one and enjoy the wind in the trees.
Looking forward to:
-June. Maycember is hitting pretty hard. I don’t know that June will be any more restful, but I’m looking forward to flipping the page on the calendar. It’s all good things in May – baptisms, recitals, soccer games, parents visiting, first communions, wrapping up the school year – but it is exhausting to be always out and about.
-Memorial Day Weekend. Is this weekend?!?!?! where did that come from? I understand we have plans to grill with our friends, but I’m a little hazy on the details.
-This audiobook. I don’t usually do romance novels on audio, but this one is narrated by Will Watt, who read Ten Things That Never Happened, and he was so charming and heartfelt in that book that when I saw he had recorded a new audio book, I immediately put it on my holds list. His deep, rumbly voice is like being wrapped up in my favorite feel good movie.
What We Ate: Monday: Pesto Pasta Salad from NYTimes Cooking. I didn’t have capers, so I used sundried tomatoes instead, and I subbed walnuts for the pine nuts. Everyone really liked this. Vegan
Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos. This was the night I went out with my friends, so i had a very tasty dill pickle brined fried chicken sandwich. Before I left, I prepped the shrimp for the tacos and left the 13 year old with instructions on heating up the taco shells.
Wednesday: Kielbasa on the grill, sweet potatoes, and steamed broccoli. The Husband cooked. The sweet potatoes were this recipe, and were really tasty. The Kielbasa was from the Kielbasa factory, and we cooked them on the grill. I’m so excited for more grilling. Also – in my quest for ways that the kids can help in the kitchen after dinner, I had the 5 year old label the leftover kielbasa:
Thursday: Dumplings and green beans
Friday: Chicken sandwich picnic – I also packed cucumbers, apples, and strawberries.
Saturday: Pizza (carry out) and Chariots of Fire (It was my dad’s turn to pick the movie. I’ve never seen Chariots of Fire before – the two older kids were surprisingly engaged. The 5 year old, not so much.)
Sunday: Mac and Cheese – the 13 year old is made dinner! She did accidentally put in twice the amount of butter than was called for, so it was a very rich mac n cheese.
Hope your week has been lovely! What would you do with 25lbs of peaches? What corner in your house is most in need of a good declutter? Favorite frozen treat or cold drink for summer? Who made/makes you feel seen? Mosquito solutions? Any plans for the Memorial Day weekend? I have to work on Saturday, but I’m hoping for a hike and some time with friends on Sunday and Monday.
Last week started with a day off for President’s Day and it was such a lovely day… Nothing terribly special or unique. Not big adventures. Just a really nice day at home. The best thing, though, is I had the two little kids make to do lists for the day, a combination of things that I wanted them to do and things that they wanted to do with their day at home. I’m a firm believer that a good day is a combination of fun and productive activities. The kids seemed to really get into having little Post It lists of tasks and getting to check things off:
The one on the left is the 8 year old’s list and the one on the right is the 5 year old’s list.
We started the day in a leisurely fashion – I did some yoga. The Husband fed the kids breakfast. The after breakfast we cleaned the living room and did some general puttering around the house. We’re still struggling to find a good routine for keeping the house tidy. The tidy habits just aren’t there with me or the kids, but if we leave things to tidy at the end of the day it gets quite out of control.
Then we had lunch – reheated pizza, I’m sure. Because that’s what we always eat for lunch at home. After lunch we went on a walk/bike ride to the park. I love that we live walking distance to a playground and a trail. And since it was a holiday weekend, the parkway parrallel to the trail was closed to car traffic, so the kids had a nice long uninterrupted stretch of road to ride on. We walked from the closest playground to the next one down on the trail and played there for about half an hour before coming home.
After we got home, we watched Wonka- how luxurious does it feel to have an afternoon family movie “night”? After the movie – cute, entertaining, but not particularly memorable, I felt – I made dinner. After dinner, the 13 year old went to basketball and the 5 year old took a shower while the 8 year old worked on his Black History Month project – a poster about Barak Obama. (This is the “Barack Obama” that is on his to do Post It above. I have to say, helping the 8 year old research Barack Obama made me kind of wistful. And really really really sad about the current state of affairs in Washington D.C.) Then we had some family reading time before bed for the two younger kids. We haven’t been reading out loud together as much as we used to – we’ve been going to be so late that it’s usually just pjs, brush teeth, then lights out and cuddles. Sometimes I’ll put on a story podcast for them while we cuddle, but I’m really missing reading outloud from a chapter book. I should try to find a way to put that back into our schedule.
All in all, though, it felt like a really good day – a nice balance of relaxing fun, outdoor fun, and house/life admin. Sometimes I think when we have these family days off, we should try to do something special, but you know what, just a regular leisurely day at home is pretty special too. I don’t think we got in the car until it was time to take the oldest kid to basketball clinic. I do like having a car-free day.
The rest of the week was business as usual – school, activities, etc. I had a super title gig for a recital that featured a lot of beautiful German music and two arias by Handel. I love Handel, so that was a particular treat. One interesting thing about this recital is that the singer did his own translations. Usually when I’m given translations to made into supertitle slides, the singer has pulled them from somewhere else and sometimes they need to be massaged a little bit in order to make good title slides. But this singer, impressively translated everything himself and it was quite well done – no massaging needed.
Mundane Bathroom Things…This next bit was inspired by Elisabeth’s post last month asking for shampoo recommendations. Her post got me thinking how I’m probably the worst person to give recs for personal care products. I started listing in my head all the personal care products I use and it all seemed rather… haphazard…. Through a combination of good genes and apathy, I find myself with a pretty minimal body/face/skin care routine, mostly relying on whatever is around the house. Anyhow, I started going through the list of all the personal care products and items I use regularly and thought it might be the kind of mundane snapshot of life that I’ll be super interested in reading about twenty years from now. Also it might be stupefyingly boring. (If this seems the latter to you, feel free to scroll down to this week’s FIGS.)
Glimpse inside our medicine cabinet. What’s with the ridiculous number of deodorants??? There aren’t that many stinky armpits in the house. Also I seem to be stockpiling eyeglass cleaner. I’m glad I took this picture- it’s inspiring me to do a little clean out. Note the old fashioned ice pack on the top shelf. I love the thing but can never get to it in time when someone needs ice.
Let’s talk about showering – I don’t shower every day. I don’t even shower every other day. I usually shower three times a week. Less if I’m not going into work regularly. Showering is just kind of a lot of work to me. So my preference, though, is to shower at night. Things I use in the shower:
-Soap: Dial bar soap. This is what the Husband uses, so it’s what we have in the house and therefore what I use.
-Shampoo: I used to use Soap and Salve bar shampoo and an apple cidar vinegar rinse. I thought it might be better for the environment because there was no plastic involved, except for the old peri bottle I used for the vinegar. But the shampoo is not that easy to get and I realized that ordering it online hardly makes it good for the environment. So I just started using whatever kids’ shampoo was in the shower. I used to use the 13 year old’s Pantene (which is the shampoo of choice because we can buy it at Costco), but then she started showering in the downstairs bathroom and took her shampoo with her. So… now I just use whatever the little kids use because it’s there. Currently we use Everyone 3-in-1 soap (Body wash, bubble bath, and shampoo.)
-Conditioner: Pantene – but only if I’m showering downstairs in the 13 year old’s shower and it’s there. Otherwise no conditioner.
-Washcloth. Sometimes. Only if there’s already one in the shower. But even then, I never know who used it last so usually I don’t bother.
-Tubshroom. Not personal care per se, this is a little silicone insert that you put in the drain and it catches hair. I do lose a lot of hair in the shower and this thing is invaluable in keeping the hair from clogging the drains. Or at least keeping it from quickly clogging the drains. We still do have to have our drain snaked about once a year.
After Shower Things I use: -Towel – I have a favorite towel that I’ve been using for probably twenty years. I took it from my parent’s house when I moved out. I love it because it is large, bath sheet sized, but it isn’t thick, so it’s easy to manipulate it to dry off and then I can wrap my hair in it. I get very grumpy if it is in the wash when I want to shower. (Thank you to my Husband to washing my towel, even when he doesn’t tell me he’s doing it ahead of time…)
-Q-tips. i know! they say don’t use q-tips in your ears, but I hate having wet ears.
-Cetaphil body cream – must moisturize after shower. I’m pretty brand loyal about this. I usually get it at Costco because I can buy two giant containers at a time and not have to think about it again for a year.
-Turbie twist, to dry my hair after I towel dry it. I hate walking around with wet hair. When I shower at night, I’ll usually sleep with my hair in the Turbie Twist because it gives my hair a bit of volume in the morning when it is dried.
-Deodorant – not shower specific as usually I only use deoderant if I’m going out in public. I don’t tend to bother with deodorant for hanging out at home. I’ve been using Native lilac and white tea lately, because it smells nice and supposedly is free of aluminum and parabens. Is it really better? Who knows. Everyone’s body chemistry is different so I feel like there’s no magic solution.
-Hair dryer – I prefer to let my hair air dry, but if I happen to shower in the morning and then have to go to work, I’ll blow dry it before I leave the house. I’ve had the Revlon 1875 Ionic hair dryer for over ten years. It was whatever Consumers Report recommended at the time.
Before bed: -tooth brush – I’m currently using a Dr. Suess kid’s toothbrush. What can I say? It was what was in the toothbrush bin when I had to replace my last toothbrush. Shockingly – I always brush at night, but don’t always manage a morning brush. If I brush in the morning, I prefer to do it first thing because a dentist friend told me that the morning is when there is the most amount of bacteria in one’s mouth.
-Toothpaste – Aquafresh Extreme Clean – I’m actually pretty picky about this. This is the only toothpaste I’ll use if given a choice. Everything else tastes like cotton candy to me.
-Floss – Oral B Glide – this was recommended by the dentist because my teeth are pretty tightly packed together and other floss just shreds when I try to use it.
(I know I should wash my face at night, but I don’t wear make-up, so I don’t feel particular urgency about face washing. If I feel the need to wash my face, I’ll just do a wet washcloth and water.)
Other stuff in my bathroom that gets regular use: -to clean my glasses, whatever glasses spray came with my glasses from the place I got my glasses. I’m pretty sure it’s just Windex in a branded spray bottle. -Aquaphor – for every thing that feels dry. Usually my lips, often times my hands if I have an eczema breakout. Also slathered on our faces before we go out when the air is super cold and biting. -Steroid ointment for my eczema. okay, truth, this tube of prescription ointment is at least eight years old, but it is huge and it still works to calm my eczema when it gets bad. Perhaps I should go back to my dermatologist and get a new prescription, but I am terrible about doctors. -Lip balm – Aquaphor Lip Repair Stick. Love that this stuff keeps my lips from feeling dry without being too thick or sticky. -Sunscreen – I use whatever I have for the kids. I had a fancy sun screen last summer, but it made my skin sting and burned whenever I got it in my eyes, so I went back to just using whatever I get for the kids – usually Think Baby or Aveeno, or Coppertone. Last year at some point, I also discovered the amazingness that is spray on sunscreen. That was life changing. I only use sunscreen in the summer, though. I should probably use it all the time. -period pads – These days it’s the Cora brand, but I’ll usually just pick up whatever cotton topsheet pads I can find at Target. -period underwear – technically in my bedroom, not bathroom, but it spends a lot of time in my bathroom. -diaper sprayer. We installed this when we were using cloth diapers, and it actually continues to be quite useful even though we have been diaper free for three years now. I use it to rinse my period underwear, spraying it right in the toilet. Also I will on occasion use the diaper sprayer to rinse by nether regions, kind of like a bidet, but not. -Kleenex. Always Kleenex brand. NEVER the lotion kind. That just smears when I try to clean my glasses. -Toilet Paper – Charmin. We are pretty brand loyal to toilet paper. I got us the Kirkland brand one time and there was a meltdown when the TP fell apart as a butt was being wiped. I had to give away the rest of the 24 roll pack. And now we just get the Charmin. -Advil. -Hand Soap. Soft Soap because we buy that in bulk at Costco, and I love our soap dispenser that I got a year and a half ago at a sale by a local pottery group:
What I don’t have is any make up because I don’t wear any. I might have some that I keep on hand in case I want to do my face for opening night, but I never really want to make the effort, and I figure I’m just standing around in the dark all night – no one cares what I look like. I guess if I do have any make-up lying around it’s got to be at least five years old. I should probably find that and throw it out.
Whew – I guess it is a long list after all. I didn’t even list most of the stuff in the medicine/linen closet in the bathroom. Like the first aid/medicines that we keep in the bathroom, but I figure that’s not stuff I use regularly. Also didn’t list out the contents of the hair accessories drawer, but that’s because my hair is in a short phase so I don’t usually use the hair ties or clips right now. So there’s a snapshot of one corner of my life in February 2025.
Grateful For: my weekly collection of things I’m grateful for. This month, I’m recording extra gratitudes to add to Elisabeth’s FIG Collective I’ve loved reading everyone one’s FIGs this month.
-Paths and parks.
-School Bus Drivers. One day the 8 year old’s bus was 30 minutes late. Turns out there were some additions to the bus driver’s earlier route that caused trickle down delays. As annoyed as I was to be standing in the cold for 30 minutes waiting for the bus, I’m really grateful to school bus drivers for getting kids to and from school safely. That can’t be an easy job.
-Kids reading to each other:
-That my thyroid is fine. Last year I had a thyroid ultrasound to rule out any issues related to my abnormal period. There was a “not-concerning, but maybe you should have it checked out” nodule. At the time, the ENT said my thyroid is fine, but to schedule a six month follow up. (I guess my abnormal period is just called “being in my mid-forties”.) I had my follow up this week and everything looks fine. There continue to be nodules on my thyroid, but they seems to come and go and are small, so I have another follow up in a year, but no one is concerned.
-Sunshine.
-All the things that make a good morning – healthy breakfast (sweet potato, black beans, cilantro, and scallions), hot tea, a good book, and the crossword puzzle. And fifteen minutes to enjoy it all in peace:
My morning happy place. When it happens.
-Fleece-lined pants. I know I keep mentioning this one, but they are truly life changing.
-It’s Cadbury mini egg season!!!! How much do I love Cadbury mini eggs? The crisp crunchy shell. The smooth sweet chocolate inside. The perfect little size to pop into my mouth. The fact that they are only available once a year. Rejoice! It is Cadbury mini egg season. Oh a discovery! The other day I had some Cadbury mini eggs while sipping my tea and it made my tea taste like a chocolate chai. In light of my M&M conundrum, I am hiding these from the kids.
-That the 8 year old did his homework without either of us having a meltdown.
-A quiet theatre before a performance. The promise of a beautiful evening of music. I think one of my favorite moments of my job is that half hour before a show starts, when everything is in place to begin, and the air back stage is one of quiet anticipation and preparation. I love that energy.
-Laundry freshly washed and hung up to dry, scenting the air with the smell of detergent.
-The five year old’s sassy sense of style:
-Music, played loudly in the car with everyone singing along and bopping to the beat.
-The six pound cabbage. We have a friend who gives us his CSA when he is out of town. Last week, he brought over a HUGE cabbage. Like bigger-than-my- head huge. I put it on the scale to see how much it weigh. Friends, this cabbage weighed more than any of my children at birth. We’ve been slowly eating away at it. Good thing cabbages last a long time.
Yes, that’s a 6lb, 13.9 oz cabbage. I guess that makes it almost 7lbs!
-A brisk and invigorating walk.
-Hot tea in a mug.
-A cake on the counter. One day, I was working from home and, in my procrastination, I decided that I had to do something with the sad looking oranges in our fruit bowl. When I say sad, I mean really really sad. Like the outside skins were dyhydrated to the point that the oranges could be used as baseballs. I found this recipe for whole orange bundt cake (Sunset Magazine’s Whole Orange Cake)- you puree the whole orange and put it in the cake. It was the perfect use for the sad oranges. Having the whole orange in the cake gave the cake a marmalade-like tang, making it not too sweet. This lovely cake sat on the counter all week, and how lovely it was to be able to walk over and cut of a slice to nibble whenever I felt like it – morning snack, afternoon tea, dessert… Doesn’t having a cake on the counter just make a kitchen seem like home?
I did not sift the powdered sugar when I made the frosting, so it clumped a little bit.
Looking Forward To:
-Swimming lessons. I managed to snag a hard to get swim lesson slot at one of the county pools. I’ve been feeling a little anxious that the two younger kids still don’t know how to swim, and I’m really hopeful this is the year they learn. I know once a week swim lessons for six weeks probably won’t do it, but it’s a start. I think I’ll also try to find time to take them to the pool as well for rec swim time. We have a new-ish county rec/swim center that opened last year and I hear it’s great. Apparently there are two hydrotherapy pools – one near the kids’ area and one far away from the kids’ area. That sounds like a great design.
-Spring – there have been some positively spring-like days lately. I’m so excited that the weather is beginning to turn.
-Cherry Blossom season! The predictions for Cherry blossom season have started to trickle in. The Washington Post is predicting mid March.
-Knitting. I’m determined to do something with the yarn sitting in my room. I’ve borrowed some books from the library and my friend loaned me some needles and I’ve decided to make a hat. I’ve knitted and pulled apart the first five rows three or four times already, but I guess that’s par for the course. I get a little excited for the possibilities every time I see the yarn and needles.
-Plans with friends. I have three separate dates on the calendar with friends whom I haven’t seen in at least six months, one of them for a year. Looking forward to catching up.
What We Ate:
Monday: Tikil goman Meera Sodha’s recipe for Ethiopian cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. We ate this with the injera that we bought from the Ethiopian grocery store that I mentioned last week. It was really simple and tasty. Vegan.
Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. We had a friend join us for Taco Tuesday last week. The Husband made slow cooker chicken, and I also made black beans and shrimp for the tacos. On the side – mano slaw, guacamole,
Wednesday: Baked Feta and Tomato Pasta – recipe shared by Julie on her blog. This was so easy and tasty. I thought we would have leftovers, but the kids kept asking for more. It was a touch acidic for the Husband, but I think he feels that way about any tomato-heavy dish.
Thursday: I worked this evening so had a work canteen salad. The Husband made this 15 minute Tomato Egg Noodle from Omnivore’s Cookbook. Scrambled eggs cooked in a ginger-y tomato sauce and eaten over noodles. I had leftovers days later and it was SO GOOD.
Friday: Pizza (carry out) and Lego Batman. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen Lego Bathman before, but the Husband said I should just be thankful that he talked the 8 year old out of choosing the latest Paw Patrol movie.
Saturday: The two little kids and I were at a birthday party. There was the usual pizza, but also the family ordered falafel as the main food as well. The falafel was really tasty, the pita pillowy, there were lots of veggies and pickle toppings and there was this amazing spicy green Schug sauce to top it all off. Gold star to the birthday parents for this spread.
Sunday: Dinner out at a really tasty sandwich place, Full On. We were out for the 13 year old’s basketball game, which happened to be close to this bar/restaurant that we really like but don’t go to a lot because it’s not really close to our house. The 13 year old and I shared a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and a Crab Cake Sandwich with onion rings.
Here’s a thought to leave you with: One of my favorite things to read is the weekly chat of advice columnist Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post. I find that she answers readers questions with such a great blend of empathy and pragmatism and without sugar-coating things. Her readers often contribute similarly thoughtful advice. These past few weeks there has been much angst in reader questions about the state of the world and our place in it. I loved this comment a reader submitted to the chat last Friday:
Hope you have a week of beautiful points. Tell me about your mundane body care things. How many bottles are in your shower? Blow dry or not to blow dry? What’s your favorite baked good to have on the counter? What else should I do with my 6 lb cabbage. (I think there’s still 4 lbs left.)
It was a massively unproductive week. I was laid up sick for much of the week. What started as a throat tickle on Monday, devolved into me in bed for most of Wednesday. Wednesday also happened to be the snow day. Fortunate or unfortunate timing? Well, fortunate in that the kids didn’t have to go to school. Unfortunate in that it was a snow day and everyone really wanted to go sledding… There were disappointed kids for sure. In the end I spent three days in bed with periodic excursions to take the kids to the bus or to activities. Luckily on Friday the Husband took care of the school bus pick up and drop off so I could continue to rest.
I am a terrible sick person. I don’t like to stay in bed, I get bored easily, I always think I feel better way before I actually do. But I will say there is always one point when I feel like being in bed is doing me no good and I have to get outside. By the third day of being in the house resting, I was convinced that I wasn’t going to get any better staying in bed and went for a walk. My body just craved sunshine and fresh air and some movement. I walked towards the 13 year old’s school and met her as shew as on her way home, and he face lit up when she saw me. I don’t know if it’s scientifically backed, but I did feel better for having gotten out of bed and out of the house. Or maybe it was seeing my kid’s face all lit up with cold and joy. I’m reminded of something I read once (maybe it was Oprah) that said, “Make sure your face lights up when you see your child.” Realizing how much it made my day to see my kid’s face light up made me remember that it works both ways and I need to have that same joy when I see her too.
(note: it was Oprah. Rather Toni Morrison via Oprah. Okay -funny story – Toni Morrison taught at my alma mater. I once sat next to her at a lecture, and fell asleep. I hope I didn’t lean on her or drool or anything…)
Anyhow, whatever illness I had is now making it’s way through the house. The Husband had a tickle and I immediately sent him to bed, bought a humidifier, Cold-Eeeze, and Ricola. I’ve been obsessed with the idea that stress is one of the things that can exacerbate illness, so I’ve demanded everyone be as stress-free as possible. No yelling, screaming, or tantrums. Please. He seemed to have escaped the worst of it, though now the 13 year old is laid up in bed. Oh well, the bug will cycle through the family and we’ll all move on. Hunkering and reducing stress seems like an okay way to spend what is shaping up to be a very very cold February.
Fun thing, though – the 13 year old finally had her birthday party sleepover over the weekend. She’s been doing this formula for three years now and I kind of love that. She has friends over on a Saturday night – they watch movies, YouTube videos, eat pizza, chips, rainbow cake, and stay up way too late. Sunday morning we have waffles and bacon and the kids all go see a movie. Even though her birthday was in January, it took us until February to find a good weekend, due to activities and my work schedule. (It seemed downright cruel to make the Husband be the only parent at home during a tween sleepover…) This weekend was perfect because they kids didn’t have Faith Formation classes on Sunday morning and Monday is a day off from school so we can all recuperate.
I’m really proud that the 13 year old did a lot of the planning herself for the first time. Granted the planning wasn’t terribly timely, but she did take on a lot of the mental load, so I’m calling it a win. Being a new phone owner, she sent all the invites herself, as in she texted her friends with the details and tracked who was going to come. I feel like we’re entering new territory where she can make plans with her friends on her own. No more mom-enabled play dates. There was still a little coordination to be done with other parents to coordinate drop offs and pick ups, but all in all, it feels like we are slowly taking baby steps towards the oldest being an independent being. Some days I stop and realize that she will be driving in THREE YEARS and I try not to freak out too much.
The set up – fruit, chips, chips, chips, cookies, and face masks!
Grateful for: I’m trying to be more mindful of big and little gratitudes this month, in honour of Elisabeth’s FIG (Finding Joy in Gratitude) Collective this month. Thank you Elisabeth for gathering people and thoughts! (There’s my first FIG right there!)
-YouTubers who share their expertise – There was a cushion on our basement couch that had lost a button and as a result was going all shapeless. After years of the Husband asking me if it was fixable, I finally decided that the misshapen pillow would not be worthy of our Super Bowl guests so I went to the craft store and bought upholstery needles. I still didn’t have much of an idea of how to fix this, so I turned the experts – YouTube to the rescue. I found a clear and simple tutorial on how to retuft a cushion and in less than twenty minutes, I had fixed the pillow and it was once again standing upright. I felt so accomplished. In the back of my 5 year journal I keep a list of new skills I learn each year. Button tufting is going on the list.
Sad shapeless cushion.All fixed!
-Early release days for weather and being able to pick up my kid. I know not everyone can accommodate a last minute early release, so I’m really grateful that I’m in a slow period at work and that I could pick up the kid early when the school decided to close at 1pm for weather. We went to Trader Joe’s and even such a simple thing as running an errand, made for some great mommy-daughter time.
-Non-latex dishwashing gloves for my unfortunate combination of latex allergy and eczema.
-Remote start – I will be the first to tell you that I did not want an mini van. I still find it kind of scary to drive – it’s huge and I have no sense of where the rear end is. The thing is like driving around in a living room, seriously. BUT I am discovering many nice features, and this bitterly cold week, the remote start feature was amazing.
-International grocery stores and international communities. I wanted to make tikil goman (Ethopian cabbage, carrots, and potatoes) since we had cabbage and potatoes to use up. Meera Sodha’s recipe had instructions for a faux injera to eat alongside, and I was totally going to make that. But then I realized, “Wait, there is a a sizable Ethiopian population in our county. I should just get the real thing.” So I found an Ethiopian grocery store on the way home from Soccer Clinic and we picked up two packages of pillowy soft injera made fresh on the premises. It was delicious. We might have eaten half a package right out of the bag. How amazing it is to have so many international grocery stores in our area. (Also – I went down a rabbit hole reading Sodha’s column in the Guardian, The New Vegan. I want to make every recipe.)
The injera was still warm!
-The Kids’ Skating instructor. She is amazing and kind and works so well with the kids.
-The track at the 8 year old’s school. I haven’t been running, because of the cold, but there is a track at the elementary school, and one day after drop off I walked four laps while listening to my audiobook. I’m so grateful that these things are open to the public. I remember when I was little, my parents would take us to the high school and make us run laps, and I hated it, but you know… the older I get, the more I see that my parents were really on to something.
-That the car is okay. I went over a curb funny and suddenly there was this horrible scraping noise when I drove. I pulled over seriously panicking that I had done some serious damage and wondering when I was going to have time to take the car in. After looking under the hood and around the tires, and not finding anything I got down on my hands and knees and reached under the car to see if I could feel anything. Like a detached muffler. (Not even sure if that’s a thing or if I was looking in the right area for such a thing.). Then my hand felt a twig and I gave a large tug and out came a four foot long branch. Oh thank goodness. Problem solved.
-Carpooling to work with my friend and picking up Starbucks (her) and cheesy buns (me) on the way home. Letting her convince me to buy a jelly donut, which I immediately eat in three bites, covering myself with powdered sugar in the process. I don’t regret it at all.
Also this bumper sticker we saw on the way:
There was quite an eclectic collection of bumper stickers on this truck.
And Some Sick Week FIGS: -Windows. Three days sick in bed can make one tired of staring at the the walls of one’s bedroom. Except there are windows in those walls. And through those windows I could still see sunlight and clouds and sunsets and beautiful skies.
-Mucinex – I don’t usually take drugs when I’m sick, but boy did I need it this time; I was so congested I couldn’t breath or sleep.
-Kleenex.
-Rice cakes, ramen, and soup. Making lunch seemed like an impossible task when i was sick, but I also don’t like being hungry, so I did manage to make some simple soups. One day it was ramen with a cabbage, and an egg mixed in. Another day, it was a riff of this (Rice Cake Soup with Bok Coy and Edamame), though instead of chicken broth I made a “broth” by using water with kimchi tossed in. And I added dandelion greens and ginger because that’s what I had. The hot spicy filling goodness what just what I needed.
-Audiobooks – I mentioned above that I’m a terrible sick person because I get bored easily in bed. I did watch Bridget Jones’s Baby, but too much tv made my head hurt. Audiobooks to the rescue. I checked out a few rom coms from the library and listened to them. I only half paid attention to them, but the soothing voices and just enough plot was enough to calm my brain.
-The thirteen year old – who took care of the kids on the snow days when I was sick. I’m pretty sure she made them lunch and hot chocolate and let them watch inane YouTube videos all day. I know she did make them go outside for a little bit and play in the snow. But the important thing is she kept them out of the bedroom where I was sleeping.
-The Husband – who made dinner and put the kids to bed and basically solo parented while I was in bed.
-That I’m healing. The second day of being sick, I thought some yoga might heal my congestion, so I went on YouTube and searched “Yoga when sick” and a 15 minute gentle yoga video came up. It was just the easy practice that I needed to stretch a little and breathe. At the end of the video, Sara Beth said something that really stuck with me: “Instead of telling yourself ‘I’m sick, I’m stuffy, I’m exhausted, I’m miserable’, tell yourself ‘I’m healing.’” What a wonderful, gratitude-filled way to frame being sick. Rather than focus on how awful I’m feeling, reminding myself that the fever and mucus are all signs that my body is well enough to fight whatever it is that has me down, and that I’m healing.
Looking Forward To – so ironically two of my “Looking forward to” things from last week did not happen because I was sick – I didn’t go contra dancing and we didn’t enjoy a cozy snow day – but I think there is still great value in giving ourselves things to look forward to:
-Getting back into a routine after being sick.
-Voice recital that I’m doing supertitles for this week. There’s some really great music on the program and I always have a really long dinner break when I do this gig, so I’m looking forward to a nice evening walk.
-Finishing this book on audio. This was one of the books I started when I was sick and it’s pretty cute – a bit gimmicky, but not annoyingly so. (I also started another book that wasn’t as interesting, but perfectly soothing in the moment. I probably wont’ finish that one.)
What We Ate: Monday: Cheesesteak sandwiches, leftover from the Super Bowl
Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. It’s getting to be a tradition. Chicken, shrimp, black beans, mango cabbage slaw, guacamole, salsa, pickled onions.
Wednesday: Sheet pan gnocchi with broccoli and cherry tomatoes. Vegan. (I think, though come to think of it, I’m not sure if we bought vegan gnocchi.)
Thursday: Noodles w/ tofu and mushrooms. The Husband made this. I couldn’t get out of bed to eat it that night, but I had leftovers on Saturday night and they were so delicious.
Friday: Pizza (Take out) and Skeleton Crew – the latest (I think) series in the Star Wars Franchise. This one stars a bunch of kids who seem to be very far from home. And Jude Law.
Saturday: The 13 year old’s sleepover. There was a lot of pizza (from Dominos), and chips. And Rainbow cake. We get this cake every year from our local deli/diner, which in turn get them from David’s Cookies. I ate leftovers from the fridge.
Sunday: Fend for yourself. I’m pretty sure the kids ate leftover movie popcorn and injera for dinner.
Hope you have a healthy week!
What are your go to comforts and cures when you’re sick? Who makes your face light up? Whose face do you make light up?
I thought I’d keep Thanksgiving dinner simple this year since it’s just us, but even still there are several dishes with multiple steps and degrees of prep so it still feels like a project meal. Last night I made the pie filling for the pecan pie, made the pie dough, turned the turkey in the brine, roasted the turkey bones for gravy, and made the cranberry sauce.
Today I had to go to rehearsal from 10am – 2pm. Right now I’m triaging the rainbow Jell-O situation, I shaped the rolls and they are doing a slow rise in the fridge, and I’m making turkey stock (step two in gravy). We’re going to go see Wicked this evening, and hopefully I’ll make the two pies tonight. It seems like a lot when I write it out, but I like project recipes that I can break down into steps where I do one step every so often – it makes thing seem more doable.
Because it’s Thanksgiving week, I thought I’d give a big shout out to one of the biggest things I’m grateful for – the Husband.
Reasons that I’m thankful for the Husband:
He’s always thinking of how to make things better.
He always finds time to cuddle with the kids and listen to them when they are sad.
He buys me wasabi peas and dill pickle chips.
He is really nice to my parents, even when they make life complicated.
He talks to contractors.
He handles buying the technology items for the family.
He grows beautiful plants in our garden.
He returns my library books for me.
He puts up with my crazy opera/work schedule.
He is the lead parent when I’m on that crazy opera/work schedule.
He takes time off work to take care of things when I can’t.
He does the laundry 97% of the time.
He thinks about logistics and the reality of a situation when I am being impractical.
He is not squeamish about buying period products.
He is a great father and goes to all the parent teacher conferences that he can.
He tucks the covers back around me when he gets up in the morning before me.
There’s lists and lists more that I could say on the topic, of course, but that’s a start.
Happy Thanksgiving, Friends. Even if you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, here’s wishing you many things to be thankful for.
Who are you grateful for?
I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!
It’s been a wild weekend in my opera world. I’m still processing, so perhaps I’ll give the run down next week. I’ve fallen off the NaBloPoMo routine this weekend because it’s been busy, so here’s kind of a catch all post. I haven’t had a proper weekly recap post in a while, so I thought I’d write some of the random things that have gone on this week:
– I did the supertitles for a voice recital last week. It was a really fun program, though the second song set was not performed in the order I was given, so that caused a bit of panic, but I was able to catch up and get the right translation slides in place. Also – fun story – the artists added a song the day before the recital and the pianist sent me the music and text so I could make slides. “Sure, no problem. I’ll do it tonight.” I wrote in response. “Thank you!” he replied. “Do you drink wine? :)” “I don’t actually,” I wrote, “But I do eat chocolate.” Which, normally, I don’t make gratuitous grabs for chocolate, but I figured, why not? Well the pianist brought me three bags of those Lindt chocolate balls. I thought that was super kind. The coda to that story. A few days later, I noticed the five year old had chocolate peppermint breath. I didn’t think anything about it until I saw an empty bag of Lindt peppermint truffles on the kitchen floor. The sneaky kid had eaten an entire bag by herself. There were tears and sad faces. I can’t tell if I was more upset that she snuck chocolate, or that I didn’t get to eat my peppermint chocolates. Oh, also during the recital, the singer sang a John Denver song, Perhaps Love, which was a little unusual, but this line made my heart contract every time he got to it:
-Friday I had the day off, and it coincided with the Thankgiving party at the 7 year old’s class. I was on the fence about going – there seems to be many demands on a parent’s time from the school, and it was my one day off. I will admit I am not the most involved parent – I don’t PTA, I don’t Room Parent, I didn’t make it to Parent-Teacher conferences this fall. But I figured it makes the 7 year old happy when I show up, so I can do it a couple times a year. I signed up to bring an activity. After some late night googling, I decided to bring in decorative gourd bowling. I bought several decorative gourds and 12 bottles of water. I put food colouring in the water bottles – red, orange, and yellow, for some fall flavor. And that was it. I think the whole thing cost $15. At the school, I set up the water bottle like bowling pins and let the kids bowl with the decorative gourds. It was surprisingly popular for the amount of effort I put into it. Maybe not so surprising, though. I mean what kid wouldn’t want to throw produce at things? The fun thing, then, was when the bowling started getting a little out of hand, I took the 7 year old and sprung him out of school early and we went home. It just feels fun to be able to leave school early on a Friday afternoon.
=And then that night we went to a middle school production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a lot of fun. The weekend before we had gone to see A Year with Frog and Toad at the high school. Between those two productions, I’m realizing what an awesome thing school drama productions are. First of all, it’s a low key way to take my own kids to the theatre and that form of story-telling. And also, I love the sense of community- we had friends who were involved in both productions and it’s great to be able to support them.
-I haven’t written a dinner post lately, and that’s because I haven’t been home for dinner very much these past few weeks. One morning, I was packing all the snacks and food for everyone for the day and I think I packed more food to be eaten on the go than at home. I packed:
Three lunches (me, the seven year old, the four year old)
Two dinners (me and the seven year old since we both ahd a show that night)
Four snacks – two for the seven year old (one for school and one for the evening at the theatre), one for me, one for the 12 year old who had rehearsal that evening.
It seemed like a lot of portable food to pack for one day. Anyhow, the Husband has been making the majority of dinners this month. A few good dinners that I made, which I want to remember for the future:
Cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur Baking cookbook. These were savory and slightly spicy. The recipe suggested we top it with queso, which I might try next time. I actually mixed the dry ingredients ahead of time and the Husband did the rest when he got home.
Instant pot shrimp biryani from NYTimes Cooking. This was a pantry meal that I managed to make in thirty minutes one day when I had no plans for dinner.
Happy hour dinner- crackers and charcuterie and I made a batch of Brazilian cheesy bread. Cut up veggies and fruit as well. The kids really love this kind of meal.
Not dinner, but my go-to lunch has been massaged kale salad. I prepped and washed a large container of kale ahead of time, and then in the morning, I massage a few handfuls with olive oil, sesame oil, and salt. Then I throw together with whatever I have on hand – roasted sweet potato, walnuts, daikon radish, avocado, apples… It’s sturdy so will keep in my lunchbox all day, and packed with vegetables so that it feels energizing to eat during long days at the theatre.
-I’ve been thinking lately about being nice. We have feedback sessions at the end of the each show with the stage management team. There was a comment at one point about someone not being very nice, having a very direct edge to their tone when they spoke to other people. I struggle with whether or not to pass this feedback along to that person. On the one hand, not someone being nice can have an effect on morale if you aren’t used to working with them. At the same time, I don’t believe that we all need to homogenous in our way of speaking or acting, and I do think we all need to learn to interact with people who have different styles of communication. And maybe it’s because I’ve worked with this person for many many years, that I have blinders as to whether the reports about them not being “nice” is a problem. Because they are one of the kindest people that I know. And to me, being kind is much more important than being nice. So I’ve been turning these ideas over in my head – about what place does personality have in work place culture and how to value different personalities as part of the whole package that someone is.
Things I’m grateful for this week: We’re going into Thanksgiving week – there are so many things to be grateful for and I was going to write a whole week of gratitude posts. Here are some small ones to start off:
Handles – this feels kind of silly, but my laptop sleeve has a handle and it makes it super easy to carry when I also have four other bags to bring to work. Every time I pick up the laptop, I think, “Boy am I glad there’s a handle!” I mean think about all the handles in your life! Doors, boxes, coffee cups… Handles make life better.
My apple box, and the prop guy who gets it for me – The stage management console at the theatre was clearly designed for someone taller than me. When I stand at it, my score is chest height, which makes it uncomfortable to turn pages and turn my cue lights on and off. (The cue lights are the colored lights that I use to tell the crew when to execute a cue. They are at the back of my console.) So I stand on an apple box. It’s not literally an apple box – it’s a wooden box about the size of an apple crate, which is why it’s called an apple box. Every time I call in this theatre, I ask the prop head for my apple box and he finds it, only giving me a little bit of grief for being short.
The seven year old and me backstage – he’s standing on my apple box.
Rock Creek Parkway – This is the road I take to the theatre. The thing is, though, the traffic goes into the city in the morning and out of the city in the evening. I, however, go into the city in the evening, so I can’t use it. So I end up having to drive through D.C. during rush hour to get to an evening performance call. Driving through the city is tedious in normal times; during rush hours it is soul sucking. I’m grateful for whenever I can take the parkway and not have to drive through Dupont Circle.
Ten extra minutes in the morning – Because of the late nights, I’ve been sleeping in a little later than normal and the mornings have seemed a little more breathless than usual. One day we left the house a few minutes late and I realized that we were going to miss the bus, so I drove the kids straight to school, parking on the trail and walking up to the school. Turns out, if we choose to drive them walk to school, I can leave a little later, buying me an extra ten minutes in the morning and I also get a little walk in up to the school and back to the parking lot on the trail. Those ten extra minutes give me the space to breathe and think through everything that I need for the day.
How was your weekend? Who is the kindest person you know? What quotidian thing are you grateful for this week?
I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!
A weeknight at home- I got to cook dinner, help with homework and piano, do laundry, and go to bed before midnight. It was amazing.
Opening a show. There was one little snafu during the show, but otherwise it went well. It felt good to finally call all the cues in my book.
Printed spot labels. One of the most time consuming parts of putting cues in my book is writing in the information for the spotlight operators. The Stage Manager tells the spot ops whom to pick up with their light, where that person will be onstage, and what level intensity the light will be (in percentage) and also when to switch the colour in their light and then when to fade out. It’s a lot. Usually it takes a few hours to get it all in my book. My grandboss had this brilliant idea this show for the Assistant Lighting Designer, who creates the spotlight cues, to type labels with all this information. It was amazing. I just took the labels, put them in my book, and read them for the first time during final dress rehearsal. Okay, so it’s not my ideal situation to blindly call the spots for the first time during final dress- I like to have a better sense of what the spots need to do. But I simply did not have time to put the cues in my book ahead of time during this show. Having the spot cues pre-written took a huge chunk off my plate.
Friends who took the 5 year old for an overnight On one of the nights when the Husband had to be at the theatre late to pick up the 7 year old, our neighbors picked up the 5 year old from school (our kids are at the same pre-school) and kept her for the evening and an overnight. The 5 year old had a great time and it was helpful for her not to have to ride along to the theatre.
My hoodie that I keep in the office. I don’t usually love having branded work swag, but having this hoodie was really helpful last week because it was really cold in the theatre. And I spent a lot of time in the theatre.
All the people I work with – I know I said this last week, but it’s still true. I’ve dropped the ball on a lot of things or passed things off, and people have picked up the slack and given me grace and we still get the show up and sometimes we laugh a lot along the way, even while realizing how ridiculous the situation is. I couldn’t do this job if everyone was an asshole.
The Husband – it’s broken record worth listening to. The kids and I could not get through tech week and our busy schedules if he didn’t pick them up, feed them, drive them places, help with homework, bake cookies (he baked cookies on Monday when he was off for Vegeans’s day!), do laundry, pick up the house, keep in touch with contractors, and worry about us driving late at night.
What are you grateful for this week?
I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!
