Recap and Menu – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Three Days in Niagara-on-the-Lake

We got back from our road trip to Niagara on the Lake earlier this week. I’m kind of rubbish at writing trip recaps that take more than one post to get out, so I’m going to put the whole trip in this one post.

Originally when we had planned this road trip, we were going to go to Indiana, Chicago and Niagara: Indiana because that’s where my in-laws are buried and for the Husband to see college friends, Chicago because it’s an awesome city and Niagara because the oldest had wanted to go ever since she was eight or nine and read a Geronimo Stilton book set at Niagara Falls. But then I got a last minute gig and we had to re-think our trip and we ended up cutting out the Chicago portion. The Husband and the kids left for Indiana on a Wednesday while I stayed home to finish out my contract. They visited Grandma and Grandpa’s grave sites, cleaned the tombstones, and then went to visit friends.

The Saturday after my show, I was on a 9:50am flight to Indianapolis. I had a moment of pause when I emerged out of arrivals at IND because this was where my in-laws would always meet us when we flew in to visit them- they were not the “We’ll pick you up outside” type people. They passed away ten years ago and we never fly into IND anymore because – well there’s no one to pick up up anymore so we now just drive to Indiana. Walking out into the arrivals concourse and not seeing their smiling faces just made me so sad for a moment, thinking about how the two younger kids will only know their grandpa and grandma through the memories of other people.

The Husband and kids picked me up and we headed to Bloomington, where the Husband went to college and where we met up with the Husband’s friends. We spent two nights in Bloomington. The first day, we had sandwiches at Dagwood, went to Hot Pot for dinner, then Husband, his friends, and the 9 year old played Role Playing Games deep into the night. (Shadow Run – I have no idea what this was, but from what I overheard, it sounded like people doing mundane things while trying to stay alive.).

The next morning we went to brunch at The Village Deli, where the pancakes were as big as my head. They had a cinnamon roll pancake that featured a swirl of buttery cinnamon goodness cooked into the pancake. Afterwards we wandered around the Indiana University campus, the Husband and his friend pointing out buildings and paths from their college days. The students haven’t returned to campus yet, so it was pretty quiet. There’s something kind of magical about a quiet campus, I think – all the simmering potential and the air that important things are waiting to happen. After stopping for ice cream, we said good-bye to the Husband’s friends and then we wandered around Bloomington for a while, we stopped at a few book stores (The Husband and I bought Alexis Hall’s recent book Hell’s Heart to read together – the Husband likes Science Fiction/space opera, I like Alexis Hall; we’re hoping we both like this book.)

Because we have a weakness for public libraries, we stopped at the Bloomington Public Library. They have a huge children’s section, a nice used book store, and a pretty awesome teen section. The teen room was what impressed me the most; it was a space where kids could truly gather. In addition to books, there was an area where kids could lounge and play MarioKart, there were several craft tables with supplies, there was a wall of ukuleles and guitars… And despite all that (maybe because of?) the room was relatively quiet even though it was filled with teens. I really wished our library had a teen room like that. One of my favorite things was they had a gumball machine that would spit out book recommendations. How fun is that? You turn the knob and a little plastic capsule pops out inside is a folded piece of paper:

We also stopped at a record store. The Husband loves buying vinyl. At the record store, they had a classical music section and I leafed through the albums, taking a trip down memory lane as I saw some albums that I remember from my youth. I think one thing that I lament with the advent of music streaming is the loss of album covers – what a lost opportunity for some great art. Such as these ones:

I mean seriously – this is what we’re missing out on with music streaming!

The record store also had listening stations throughout the store. Do you remember those? I used to love going to Tower Records and putting on a pair of earphones and getting to hear the music right there, close and intimate. The kids were getting a little restless, so I perched them on stools and had them listen to some albums and, surprisingly, it kept them rapt for a good 15-20 minutes. Do you remember just listening to music? No distractions, no multi-tasking?

That night we had Indian food for dinner, picked up some groceries from the Bloomington Co-op, then had an early night.

The next day, we set off for Niagara Falls, by way of Detroit. Why Detroit? Well, the Husband really wanted to try genuine Detroit style pizza. Have you ever had Detroit style pizza? The crust is thick and they put the sauce on top of the toppings. It was very filling for sure.

This was the personal size. I only managed to eat half of it.

After lunch, we got on the road again. We made a little unplanned detour in Sarnia, Ontario – the town where I grew up. I started to write about that pit stop, but the post got long and I had so many thoughts, so I’m going to save that for another time. We arrived in Niagara on the Lake around 9pm – enough time to unload the car and turn in for the night.

We had three full days in Niagara, and we managed to pack them very full – perhaps a little bit too full. Here’s how our time in Niagara On The Lake was spent:

Day One: Rental bikes and theatre.
Apparently a big thing to do at Niagara-on-the-Lake is to do a bike tour of the wineries. We aren’t big wine drinkers, but we do like biking. A couple weeks before I had found a place that rented bikes. I wrote them and asked if they also had 20″ and 24″ bikes to rent. The folks at Zoom Bikes got back to me within minutes and said, “Yes!” Zoom Bikes, coincidentally was a ten minute walk from where we were staying, and our first full day in Niagara-on-the-Lake, we walked over at 9:30am and picked up our bikes. I highly recommend Zoom Bikes – the staff there was super friendly and helpful in telling us which routes to take, they provide helmets and bike locks and each bike has a basket and bell. You can do a half day rental (3 hours) or a full day rental (until 8pm.)

We spent most of the day biking the trail alongside Niagara Parkway. The trail would have taken up all the way to Niagara Falls, but we didn’t feel up to doing the whole thing. Instead, we biked for about an hour and a half along the Parkway before turning around and coming back. The trail was nice and smooth and had good views of the Niagara River. On the way back, we stopped at Walker’s Market for sandwiches and baked goods. I had a butter tart, a bit of Canadian deliciousness that I never see in the States.

After lunch, we biked to Fort George National Historic site, a military fortification that was originally completed in 1802 by the British Army. It was largely destroyed during the War of 1812 and very little of the original buildings remain. It was a nice historical stop – they had costumed re-enactors who answered questions and engaged visitors. We watched a musket demonstration, wandered through buildings, ate cookies baked in a hearth oven, walked through a tunnel to a look out tower. The kids had little activity books to fill out.

After Fort George it was a five minute bike ride to Queen’s Royal Park, which was on the mouth of Lake Ontario and had a little strip of beach. We weren’t prepared to go into the water, but the 6 and 9 year old took off their shoes and socks and built dams with rocks while the Husband and the 14 year old relaxed in the shade.

Lake Ontario. On a clear day you can see Toronto.

Around 4:00pm, we biked back to Zoom Bikes to return our bikes and head back to our rental house where we rested before our next adventure. I have to say, when I first got the idea for a family bike ride, I was a little nervous about the two little kids, but I would say we biked maybe 10 or 15 miles that day and no one complained. Family bike rides are going to go on our list of vacation activities, I think.

The next adventure as dinner and the theatre. Dinner was at a local Irish Pub (because every city has one, even Kyoto, Japan). After dinner we headed to the Shaw Festival. Ontario has two world renowned summer theatre festivals: The Stratford Festival (which specializes in Shakespeare), and the Shaw Festival (which specializes in works either written in the lifetime of George Bernard Shaw, or set during that time period.) Growing up in Sarnia, we would often go to the Stratford Festival, but we never went to the Shaw Festival. I’ve always wanted to see something at the Shaw Festival, so this was a dream come true.

The theatre complex was stunning. There are two (maybe three?) theatres on the site, with an airy courtyard between the spaces and also a lovely garden out back where patrons can sit and enjoy nature as they wait for their show to start. In the garden, there were trees with poems attached to the trunk, each poem listing the staff member who chose it. I thought that was such a personal touch.

We saw an adaptation of the book Wind in the Willows and it was wonderful. The performances were high energy, the set was clever and inventive, and the show was performed in the round, which always lends a sense of intimacy and immediacy. I don’t go to a lot of straight plays, and I always forget how wonderful it is to see actors playing off each other, finding their own rhythms and paces.

After the play, there was a Q&A with the actors, which we stayed for. It was really fascinating to learn about the unique nature of the Shaw Festival – they are truly a theatre company, where everyone is there for the whole summer and plays parts in multiple shows – they might be a lead in one show and then in the ensemble of another show. I was proud of the kids for asking questions even though it was mostly grown ups who stayed for the Q&A. The family also gave me a hard time for not asking the stage manager (who was moderating the Q&A) a question – I feel bad because they were right, no one ever asks the stage manager questions… I really like theatre that has these audience events – if you ever go to a show that involves an Q&A afterwards, I highly recommend going.

Day Two: Niagara Falls
This was our day in Niagara Falls. We were originally going to take the WeGo bus from NOTL to the Falls, but we couldn’t get the purchase to go through online, so we ended up taking and Uber. Originally I hadn’t wanted to drive in because I had read that the parking can be really difficult and expensive. We later discovered that if you are willing to walk 15 or 20 minutes away from the main drag, you can find parking for $10-$20 for the whole day. If we ever go back to Niagara Falls, we will probably try that option.

Niagara Falls has gotten really developed since I was there as a kid. Back in the 80s and 90s, I remember there being a Ripley’s Believe it or Not and a Wax Museum but that was it for non-falls related entertainment. Now, the Clifton Hill area a few block from the Falls is lit up like a Vegas amusement park and there is no shortage of ways to be entertained or to spend one’s money, both at the Falls itself and at Clifton Hill.

Knowing that there were so many things to do in Niagara, we focused on just two things – the iconic boat ride to the Falls and a visit to the Niagara Parks Power Station with its tunnel to the base of the falls. The Boat Ride is the must do of Niagara and I remember doing this as a child. The Power Station seemed like a really cool perspective of the Falls. Our Uber dropped us off at the Power Station at 11:00am, and we got tickets for the 1pm tour.

To pass the time before the power plant tour, we walked over to take in our first views of the Horseshoe Falls. The Falls are huge. It is a lot of water travelling very fast. Niagara Falls is such a popular destination that it almost feels like a cliche, but seeing it never felt cliched to me – it just felt awesome and almost meditative to watch the water flow and hear it roar. I felt like I could just stand there and watch it forever.

For lunch we had brought some sandwiches from the Budapest Bakeshop in Niagara on the Lake (more on that below), so we found a table outside and ate those before heading to the Niagara Power Station. The Power Station was built in 1906 and then decommissioned in 2005. It is now a museum that combines history and science. Visiting it is great for people who like a little bit of nerdy information with their tourism. It was fascinating to think of how all the water was used to create electricity. The tour even took us up to the original offices of the Power Station and back to one of the control rooms.

The main exhibit hall of the Power Station.

The last part of the Power Station visit was a descent down to a tunnel that had been used to feed the water back into Niagara River. The elevator is glass so as it took you down you could see the inner mechanics of the power station. The tunnel now provides a walkway to the shores of the Niagara River where you can get a view of the bottom of the falls.

We spent the rest of our time at the Power Plant exploring the various exhibits – there was a good combination of hands of activities and informative placards. There was an audio tour included with admission, which I’m always down for an audioguide!

Soon it was time to head off to our boat ride. When I was growing up, the boat ride was called The Maid of the Mist, but I’ve learned that Maid of the Mist is actually the boat tour from the American side. The tour from the Canadian side is called merely Niagara City Cruises. We picked up our complimentary red ponchos and boarded the boat. The 6 year old didn’t want to go to the top level, so I rode in the bottom level with her. The views were still stunning, and we got VERY wet. The boat took us past the American Falls and then close to the base off the Horseshoe Falls. It was such a sensory overload of an experience – water spray everywhere, the roar of the water coming down, and the amazing sight of the falls. And on the way back to the dock, we even saw a rainbow!

Here’s the view of the boat that we took from above earlier in the day.

The boat ride was short – maybe 30 minutes, but I think it was the kids’ favorite activity of the trip. Following the boat ride we headed to dinner. We walked through the very crowded and neon touristy Clifton Hill area to the quieter area a few blocks further away for some Indian food. For some reason Indian food is one of our go tos when we travel – I think we like knowing that the food will be flavorful and we’ll get good vegetarian options.

Afterwards we got some (mediocre) boba and walked back down to the falls. One of my favorite memories of visiting Niagara Falls when I was a kid was when the Falls were illuminated at night. I really wanted to stay for that experience again, which meant staying out a little later than planned since the lights weren’t turned on until 8pm. I have to say, when the lights were turned on we were still half an hour until sunset and the skies were still bright, so the effect was a little underwhelming, but as the skies got darker, the lights on the falls became more saturated. It wasn’t as magical as when I was growing up, but it was still really pretty to see.

Around 9pm, we hopped in an Uber back to our house, we were all exhausted from our big day of walking and adventures.

Day Three – Hiking and Small Town Shopping and Beach Time:
Our third day started with a walk into town to get our van. Early that morning, the Husband had taken it to a charging station in town and since the parking meters turned on at 10am, we wanted to get the van before we had to pay for parking. It was almost like a mini date! We stopped to pick up a cinnamon sugar chimney cake from The Budapest Bakery – these were a new to me treat – dough is wrapped around thick cylinder and baked. Then the inside of the cylinder can be filled with sweet or savory fillings. (We had bought a bunch of their chimney cake sandwiches the day before to eat at Niagara Falls.)

Then we wandered a little down the street of cute shops. Not much was open before 10am, but one shop that was was Beau Chapeau hat shop. I love hats and had bookmarked this as a place I wanted to visit. The store was FULL of all shapes and sized of hats. And they also had an area where they built and repaired hats. This was a lovely shop and I walked out having indulgently refreshed my hat collection. I can’t wait to wear all my new hats.

After we got back to the house, we decided to head out for a hike. The 14 year old stayed behind, so it was just the Husband, me, and the 6 and 9 year olds. We went to Niagara Glen to visit the Nature Center and go for a hike. The hike took us to some gorgeous vistas of Niagara Gorge.

The hike was quite a bit steeper than I had thought it would be, so even though it was a short hike (maybe 90 minutes round trip), it was pretty intense in parts. We stopped at the halfway point to eat the peanut butter and honey sandwiches that I had brought. After the hike, the 6 and 9 year old changed into our swim suits and headed back to the little beach at Queen’s Royal Park, where we played in the sand and swam in the lake for a couple hours. The kids were really obsessed with building a dam and once I figured out that the water a few meters out was less rocky and actually had a nice sandy floor, I hung out there and swam back and forth. It was a nice cooling way to relax after our hike.

Around 4pm, we walked over to meet up with the Husband and the 14 year old at Balzac’s coffee shop. Next to Blazac’s was Fritters on the Lake, a shop that was recommended multiple times on Reddit (where I get a lot of my travel ideas, tbh.) They make only one thing at Fritters on the Lake – apple fritters. Basically they take apple rings, dip them in batter, fry them, and sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar. They also came with a little container of caramel sauce. The whole thing was divine.

After our snack break, we wandered around Niagara on the Lake for a little bit, checking out the various cute shops. I stopped at the candy store and picked up a bag of licorice – they had salted licorice as well as chalk licorice, two of my favorite kinds. We also stopped at the grocery store to stock up on our favorite Canadian snacks:

Photo taken after we got home – wine gums, ketchup chips, maple cookies, Coffee Crisp, Oh Henry, Smarties…

Then we picked up gyros and falafel for dinner from Gyros on the Lake (“On the Lake” seems to be a big thing here.) and sat in the nearby park and ate it. The Husband and the 14 year old had tickets to see Funny Girl that evening, so they headed off to the theatre.

We had only planned on one theatre excursion on this trip, but Wind in the Willows was so good that they Husband and 14 year old wanted to see a second show. One of the wonderful things about the Shaw Festival is that student tickets are only $28, so it taking the kids to see theatre didn’t break the bank. They said Funny Girl was also really really good. The show had six understudies going on that evening, which was unusual and the Artistic leader who came out to do the curtain speech gave a shout out to all the technical departments (including stage management!) for pivoting and putting six understudies on. I thought that was pretty cool because techies never get shout out and applause.

Meanwhile the other two kids and I headed back to our rental where we packed and did laundry and had showers and basically had a low key last evening in Niagara On The Lake.

And then we went home….

We went home via the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY, which I would also highly recommend. It’s a museum devoted to, as you would figure, glass – there is both glass art and glass artifacts, and it’s all breath takingly stunning. There are also opportunities to take part in glass activities – we did the sand blasting because the activity was rated for all ages and you could take that home with you right away. The museum also had opportunities to do glass fusing, etching, flame working, and glass blowing. For sand blasting, we used tape and stickers to make a design on glasses and then using sandblasting techniques created a frosted look on the glasses.

The finished product at home in our cupboard.

After doing our sandblasting project, we took one of the tours then wandered around the museum on our own. The kids really liked the hands on science exhibit and we got to watch someone make a wine glass using flame working technique. I loved how the exhibits were a combination of the exquisite (see below) and the mundane – there was a whole exhibit about Pyrex and Corning ware.

Nocturn 5 by Karen LaMonte. This piece was stunning.

These are from the collection of contemporary women artists.

I loved this one – it’s called Thousand Hands by Song Dong. It is made up of discarded hands that were found outside a factory that makes glass Buddhas.

We spent about four hours at the Corning Museum and then got in the car to continue home. We stopped the night in Camp Town, just outside of Harrisburg, PA where we had spent our reading retreat a month ago. It wasn’t a conscious effort to return to Harrisburg, rather it was a convenient place to stop since we like to stay at hotels in the Marriott family. In the morning, we spent an hour wandering around Mechanisburg, including some time in an vintage good store where we found some plates and a table top tennis game for the kids from the 1970s. Then we had lunch at Millworks, the brewery/ artist studio we had visited last time we were here, and grabbed coffee and chai at Denim Coffee, another of our favorite places from our reading retreat. We were on the road again by 2pm and then home by 5:30pm.

It was nice to get home not too late – we unpacked and clean up and ordered pizza and watched The Princess and the Frog for movie night. I had never seen that movie before – it’s delightful.

As nice of an adventure we had over the past week, it felt so cozy to come home and go back to having pizza and movie night.

Grateful For on this trip:
-That we had a safe road trip. And the Husband for driving almost the entirety of the trip. I think we are embracing the road trip as our summer activity. International/ plane travel is great and all, but I think it’s good to also explore what’s just around us.

-That we were able to see friends in Indiana and they made time for us.

-Our Bookings.com host who were super responsive and even sent us a detailed list of places we could charge the van. The house was perfect – we could walk to the cute shops of Niagara on the Lake. The house was well furnished – there were toys and games and craft supplies for the kids. There was a fitness area in the basement so I could go yoga and some strength training. Everything was labelled. I mean everything – light switches, cupboards, drawers. I liked not having to guess where things were. I would definitely stay there again.

-That all three kids are now old enough and proficient enough on bikes that spending a day biking was a feasible plan.

-That our contractor came and fixed our water damaged wall while we were gone and we came home to his beautiful repair job.

-Nature. And the fact that Niagara Falls, despite being a huge tourist destination, is still an amazing natural feature.

-That the kids were in a relatively good mood and got along in the car, mostly.

-Museums. For being full of beautiful and fascinating things.

-That, back home, our friends came over and fed the fish while we were gone.

-Time together with the family.

Well that’s the recap on the trip! I know I usually put our dinners on these weekly recaps, but it’s all in the recap. And if there is no dinner listed, it meant that we ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches and apple slices for dinner. I would say all in all it was a good trip. There were some unbloggable mishaps – not my story to share – but hopefully we got through it all okay. If anything, I would say I would have loved to spend one more day in Niagara on the Lake. The one thing we didn’t have was a lot of down time and NOTL is the perfect setting for some downtime. I’ll remember that for the future because I hope we do go back again.

Have you ever been to Niagara Falls? What kind of activities do you seek out when you travel?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye July, Hello August!

A theatre with the seats half filled. Onstage is platforms set with church pews and on the sides is scaffolding. A movie theatre frame, lined with lights displays movie posters. One poster prominently says "Tosca". — Photo taken by my friend who came to see the show.

Well another tech week and show into the history books. I had a good show. Some frustrations, but over all I worked with a lot of really great people who all worked super hard to put a show on very little time. One fun thing that happened on the day of the performance – there had been rain forecast, and we heard periodic rumbles. We were all hoping that the rain would hold out because we are in an outdoor venue and a large part of the audience sits out on the lawn, which is uncovered. Well, we were lucky and the rain did hold off. But just as the show finished and the heroine had collapsed on the ground dead, there was a huge clap of thunder and the heavens opened up. I guess God approved of our show….

August! Where did you come from? Here we are. How was July? Well here’s the run down:

July Highlights:
-Going on a Reading Retreat with the Husband over the 4th of July. We went to Harrisburg, VA and enjoyed bookstores, farmer’s markets, and lots of reading.

-All three kids going to Taiwan camp with my mother. They all had a great time and want to go back next year.

-Going over to a friend’s house one evening for S’mores over their firepit.

-A great swim season w/ the swim team.

-On that note – the Mom on the swim team who took over swim meet logistics when there was a sudden change in plans on a Saturday then personally contacted every swim team family to let them know of the change, even if it meant knocking on their door. (Our Swim Team Rep and many of the members of our swim team are shomer-Shabbat Jews.). This display of inclusion and kindness was a definitely a highlight of the month.

-Going to the theatre with the Husband.

-Impromptu dinner with some family friends. I always think it is such a hassle to host people for dinner, but it doesn’t have to be. Plus I like cooking for people, so it’s even kind of fun if I keep things simple.

-Watching the World Cup. I might have been late for work because I was watching the final game.

-The 14 year old cooking dinner and baking. I told her she has to do at least one analogue activity a day. She fulfills this request by making a mess in the kitchen. But at least it’s tasty and she’s learning some skills.

-A Belated Birthday trip to Dave and Busters for the 9 year old and a few of his friends, with dumplings and noodles afterwards.

-Discovering the Japanese market near work and stocking up on my favorite gummy candies and buying three different brands of ramen for our ramen taste test.

-Happy Hour with my Bus Stop mom friends. (I know this happens almost every month, but it is consistently a highlight of my month.)

-The two younger kids going to camp – gymnastics for the 6 year old and fencing for the 9 year old – and really enjoying it.

-Visiting the National Gallery of Art. I should go more often. They have such good things to see there.

-Peach Truck Peaches! 25lbs of peaches. Picked them up on Sunday. Half the box was gone by Thursday. I canned 9lbs. The 14 year old made a pie. The rest we ate, dripping peach juice down our chins.

-Favorite Dinner: Salmon bowls that became onigiri making. That was fun and tasty. I’ve been researching other onigiri fillings to make.
Also – snack dinner at the pool was a big hit – crackers, salami, cheese, cut up veggies and fruit.

-Favorite thing watched: I didn’t watch a whole lot this month because I was at work a lot (or commuting to work), though I did finally watch Season 1 of Bridgerton (pretty people. pretty clothes. lots of sex. I’m on the fence if I’ll watch the other seasons. But Benedict and Francesca’s books were my favorite, so I might just watch those seasons.).
Oh we also started a show called AP Bio about a Harvard Philosophy Professor who is fired and ends up teaching high school biology. It is very funny, but the sardonic academic schtick gets old after a while so I don’t find the show great for bingeing.
We also watched a few episodes of Nora From Queens. I never remember that I love this show until I feel like I have nothing else to watch.
And of course the World Cup. I really loved watching that.

Yearly Goals/ Aspirations:
Creativity:
-Haikus: 2 (18/52 written so far this year… needs more time)
-Painting: 0 (ouf this was a bad month for making time for creativity)
-Crosswords completed: 1

Consumption:
-Live Performances: 1 theatre performance
-Museums: 2 (visit to the National Gallery of Art and to an Artist’s creative space – not technically a museum, but there was a lot of art to be seen)
-hikes: 0 (Why is this even in this category? Is it because I’m supposed to be consuming nature? Well, I did pretty badly at that.)

Healthy Habits:
-Yoga: 27/31 days
-Strength: 3x (goal is 8x a month)
-Runs: 3x (not great, but I did swim…)
-Swim laps: 4x
-Vegan Dinners: 3 (Sesame noodles- twice- and Corn, Tomatoe, and Mint Pasta Salad. Goal is once a week, so this isn’t bad)

Quote of the month:
This one came from the 14 year old. We were sitting on the couch, hanging out watching tv and scrolling the internet together. I was reading some blog or substack or something with beautifully curated sleek (and expensive) houses and glowing impeccably dressed blonds with sleek smooth locks, everything bathed in gorgeous light with nary a speck of dirt or mess in sight. And the 14 year old leans over and looks at my screen and said:
“Mom – you don’t want to be her!”
And I said, “You know what? No, I don’t.” And I shut my laptop and pulled her in for a cuddle. It was just the reminder that I needed to make sure my inputs match the things I really value and love.

July Low Lights:
-The hot weather.

-The long commute. (But yay! now I no longer have to do that … til next year. And at the risk of toxic positivity – at least I have work during the summer.)

-Smoke in the skies and the bad air quality. I’m sorry Canada had to deal with this all.

-The exhaust pipe falling off my car as I was driving to work. (But the kindness of everyone who helped me was a highlight of July.)

-Sibling squabbles. It might have been a little too much together time for the kids this summer.

-On that note – the jury is still out on whether this uber unstructured summer was a good idea. (Each kid only had one week of camp all summer.) I think the kids loved it, but I feel like they might have done better with a little more structure to their days. Yet when I tried to impose structure, there was much protesting, whining, and yelling.

-Missing a piano lesson for the kids because I forgot that it was at 7:15am, after two consecutive weeks of 7:45am. Argh! I hate stupid mistakes like that.

-Discovering the waterline to our fridge misting water.

Looking Forward to in August:
-Our trip to Niagara on the Lake and Niagara Falls.

-Listening to our Road Trip Playlist. I can’t remember where I got this idea, but I read about someone who asks people she meets on her travels to add a song to a playlist she makes for each trip. I sort of riffed on that idea and all summer long, I’ve been asking people to add a song to my road trip play list. I don’t listen to a lot of music myself, so I don’t know that I could create a playlist on my own. By asking people to give me just one song for the playlist I find that I’m being introduced to an eclectic mix of music – and each song will be tied in my mind to the person who chose it. I’m still taking songs, so feel free to give me a song for the list!

-School starting. The oldest is going to high school!

-Routine. I’m craving regular rhythms and space in my day.

-The Maryland Renaissance Festival. We usually go at the end of August for preview weekend since it’s cheaper, but they’ve changed their pricing and so the first few weekends cost just as much as any other time. So this might actually be a September thing. It’s the last year that the 6 year old can go for free, so I feel like I should make an effort.

Grateful for:
-Lap lanes at the pool. I’ve been going to swim laps at the pool and it’s a really nice alternative to running when the temperatures at so hot.

-A day off that was relaxing and productive and social – checks all my free day boxes. I read and swam and went through some of the kids’ outgrown clothes and packed for my trip and had a friend over to can peaches and went to bed exhausted and satisfied.

six jars of canned peaches sit on silicone hotpads on a granite counter — Can’t wait until January!

-Uniqlo nylon culottes. Running a show at an outdoor venue in 80+ degree weather, is deeply unpleasant if I’m not wearing the right thing. My new discovery this year was these pants – they’re lightweight, look somewhat nice, and have rear pockets, which are perfect for stashing my cell phone. And because they are culottes, they give me the coverage of pants, but are as airy as a skirt.

-Company on my drive home – My friend came to see my show and he came to the afterparty with me and afterwards, I drove him to the metro stop near me so he could get home. I’m always a fan of a commuting catch-up – it was lovely to see him and to have thirty minutes in the car to chat.

-Having a parking pass in Zone 1. The stage managers get to park in the lot closest to the theatre. The singers have to park in the lot a little further down. I always have so much stuff to schlep with me that I’m glad I get a Zone 1 parking pass.

-That the kids can pack themselves. I make them packing lists and they just do it. I do have to check the 6 and 9 year old’s suitcases afterwards, but the bulk of the work is theirs. (The 14 year old gets a list, but we let there be natural consequences if she forgets something…) I’m so glad we’re at the phase now where I don’t have to pack for the kids anymore. Also grateful that we no longer have to travel with baby gear.

a piece of paper with a 14x2 grid. In each of the rectangles is an item from the packing list. — The packing list I made for the kids. Thank goodness for clipart. Plus I got to use my laminator!

-And incredibly bright moon, rising large and luminous on the horizon as I drive eastward home after a long day at work. I needed that shot of beauty in my life at that moment.

What We Ate:
Monday: Honey Chicken with green beans and corn. The 14 year old cooked. I heard this was tasty – there wasn’t any left when I got home.

Tuesday: Leftover Teriyaki tofu and miso zucchini for me at work. I’m actually not sure what the rest of the family ate.

Wednesday: I packed more leftover teriyaki tofu, but then they had leftovers from an event at work, so I ended up eat that – it was roasted vegetables, chicken, salad, and fruit. I love free food at work.

Thursday: My friend came over to can peaches and we had snack dinner – pimento cheese, leftover miso glazed zucchini, good bread… whatever else was in the fridge.

Friday: The day of our show! We went out to eat with our interns as a Thank You for all their work this season. I had a Buffalo Chicken sandwich. I love Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches, but my stomach does not like them as much as it used to, so I only have them sparingly these days.

Welp that’s the month that was… Just in time for the middle of the month. Eeep. The month is racing by and I’ve barely been able to catch up.

Tell me, what one song would you add to my road trip playlist? Do you keep a packing list for travel? Have you ever used a laminator? What are you looking forward to in August?

Weekly recap + what we ate: 4 good adventures and 1 not so good adventure

Well last week was a week of adventures, good and bad. Well not bad, really… just bothersome. None of these adventures involved packing suitcases or driving hours from home – they were all just (mostly) fun activities that added a dash of something new and different to our days.

First the good adventures:
1) Every day adventures: I had a pretty light rehearsal week, so I got to hang out with the kids. The 6 and 9 year old and I went on bike/runs three times and we went to the pool one day. Now that we’re out of summer swim team season, I feel like going to the pool is more fun – we don’t have to be there at a certain time, or stay until practice is over. We don’t have to eat dinner there. Everyone can swim together, rather than some kids being in practice while some kids are enjoying free swim time. So going to the pool feels more like a fun outing now. And because the pool is a summer time thing, it still feels like a seasonal treat to go. The nice thing about joining a pool for the summer is that we can easily go whenever we want and not have to pay each time. Also, like going to the museums in DC, I don’t feel pressure to spend all day at the pool to make it worth the price of admission. We went for 90 minutes and it was just enough time to get some energy out and move my body.

2) Slightly bigger adventure, but still small scale: One day, we went to the National Gallery of Art. Lest you think my children are some paragons of museum exploration – I did have to bribe them with ice cream to get me to come, and even then there were many protests of, “I hate museums!!!!”

We went to the National Gallery of Art because I wanted us to see the exhibit on Niagara Falls since we would be visiting there for an upcoming family trip. Also, there is a Mary Cassatt exhibit right now, and I do love Cassatt. So we took the metro down – which with four of us is actually more expensive than paying for parking in a garage, but so much more relaxing and enjoyable than driving through the city.

a sign for the National Gallery of Art, with a picture of the Mary Cassatt painting of a girl reclining on an easy chair. The sign reads, "Iconic art (and air-conditioning) this way" with an arrow pointing as the museum. — This sign outside the NGA made me laugh. But so true.

At the Museum, the 6 and 9 year old got activity books at the visitor’s drsk, which I think did help them be a little more engaged. The two activities that I thought were really effective were the colour hunting game – find something of each colour of the rainbow (which is something we often play when we are out and about ) – and the memory game. For the memory game, you look at a painting for ten seconds and then turn your back to it and list five things your remember from the painting. Then you turn back around and look at the painting for thirty seconds, and then again turn your back to the painting and list another five things. I thought that was a really fun game snd the kids liked it too.

two small children stand before a large landscape painting. — looking for details.

The other fun thing that happened as we were at the NGA is we were looking at the Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial an a docent walked up to the kids and said, “Can I tell you a little bit about this work of art?” And then proceeded to tell us a little bit about the history and features of the statue. I thought it was so cool that they had museum employees just wandering around to talk to people about the art. I find going to the art museum sometimes can be a little passive and isolating, and I loved that someone came up to us and engaged us about what we were looking at.

The Cassett exhibit was similar to when I saw in Philadelphia a few years ago in that it featured both paintings and preliminary sketches of Mary Cassett. The kids are getting antsy by this point so I didn’t stay long. The exhibit will be at the NGA until the end of August so perhaps I can go again and take my time once the kids are back in school.

The Niagara Exhibit was small, but featured a wide range of art- from Huge paintings to smaller ink works and even video install installations. It was a fun precursor to our trip.

two pen and ink drawings of Niagara Falls.

3) Date night adventures: The Husband and I went to the theatre! Without the kids! We saw Happenstance Theatre Company’s show Adrift. Happenstance is a little hard to explain – they use a blend of clowning, physical comedy, mine, and ensemble work to create theatre works that explore existential questions and feelings. Okay, that sounds really pretentious. I had never seen their work live before, only online, and some of the members perform at the Renaissance Festival, but I’ve always been struck by the humour and whimsy and pathos of what they are inviting the audience to experience. So anyhow – we went to see their show. In a theatre. It has a loose plot centered around a bunch of medieval people adrift at sea asking the question, “What happens now?” There was music, dancing, audience interaction, comedy, and a demon that reminded me of the 6 year old.

The view of a theatrical stage with props and set pieces. A hand holds a printed program up in front of the stage. The program reads "Adrift: A Medieval Wayward Folly. " by Happenstance theatrer.

4) Culinary adventures! The 14 year old made her first pie, dough and everything. She made a peach pie (since we had 25lbs of peaches to get through).

An unbaked pie shell sits on the counter. It is filled with cup up peaches, and a hand crimps the edges of the pie dough.

The kids also made the viral watermelon ice cream that involved cutting a well in half a watermelon, then freezing it. After frozen, you pour heavy cream into the well and then scrape the frozen watermelon into the cream, stirring until it makes ice cream. This was better than I thought it would be, but I would still prefer real ice cream.

A frozen watermelon is held in place by one hand while another hand scoops out the icy flesh from the middle.

And then my intern took me to the Japanese market near work and came away with so many things! I got four different onigiri (kelp, kimchi, spicy tuna, and ramen), Yellow curry flavored chips, six bags of my favorite gummy candy (Kasugai gummies – they had the lychee flavor on sale. I bought five bags.) And then a whole bunch of ramen.
One of my summer fun goals was to have some kind of taste test – so we did a ramen taste test:

Winner was the Menraku brand – the noodles had the best taste and flavor. Of course the 14 year old said I bought the wrong flavor (I bought three different kinds of soy sauce flavor ramen.) So maybe we’ll have another ramen taste test with a different flavor?

5) And then … The not so good adventure:
On midnight on Saturday, I was sitting up late reading suddenly the 14 year old’s voice came out from her room. “Mooooommmm! There is water coming from my wall!”
I went to her room and she had pulled her dollhouse away from the wall and pulled down the giant Hello Kitty that had been up on her wall. Behind it all was a horrible water stain on the wall and damp and discoloured floor boards underneath.
“I heard a dripping,” she said, “So I wanted to see what it was.”
I went to wake my Husband who was asleep and we started to investigate in a semi-panicked, semi-groggy state, asking each other where the water damage could come from.

Eventually, we thought about the waterline to the fridge – the kitchen and the 14 year old’s bedroom share a wall. We went into the kitchen and pulled the fridge out slightly from the wall. At first we didn’t see anything, but then I noticed that there was a fine mist coming up from the back of the fridge. Not a drip or a deluge, just a fine misting. No wonder we never noticed it before. Who know how long this has been going on?

We had an access panel in the basement ceiling to the fridge waterline, so we were able to turn to turn off the water to the fridge line. We then unplugged the fridge and (with the help of a YouTube tutorial), disconnected the water line. We moved the fridge to the other side of the kitchen and assessed the damage. Behind the fridge was a mess of plaster and water. It didn’t look pretty. By then it was past 1am and we were tired. The water was stopped, the fridge plugged back in and we thought it would be okay to go to bed and deal with the rest of it tomorrow. The 14 year old’s bedroom was a mess, so she slept in the living room. There is currently a big gaping hole in the wall behind where the fridge once stood and the paint is peeling off in giant sheets. Looking behind appliances is no joke.

All in all discovering a misting leak was not on our bingo card of home ownership, but as with a lot of other things, it could have been worse.

Grateful For:
So in the same vein of my Oodles of Gratitude post a few weeks ago when my car literally fell apart, here’s a bunch of things that made me feel grateful, despite discovering the fridge leak:
-I’m grateful that when we had the basement re-done six years ago, our contactor put a shut off valve on the water line to the fridge and an access panel in the the ceiling of the basement. “You’re going to want that some day,” he said to us. So true. Some day was midnight last Saturday.
-I’m grateful that our walls are plaster and not dry wall, since plaster is resistant to mold.
-I’m grateful that we finally know why there was moisture coming up from the floorboards in the basement.
-I’m grateful that we have a contractor we trust who came and looked at the situation and is a very calming person and nothing is ever a big deal or unfixable to him.
-I’m grateful that we had somewhere else in the kitchen to put the fridge.
-I’m grateful that the 14 year old heard a dripping and was curious to see what it was.
-I’m grateful that the Husband got up, even though he was dead asleep when I woke him, and together we figured out the issue.

Some other things that made me grateful last week:
-Having short rehearsal days – giving me time to do some life and have some adventures (see above.)

-Friends who we can invite over for dinner on a whim, and not have to worry that they will judge us because the hosue is a mess becuase life happens.

-Growing up eating Asian Food. I took part in a study last week that looked at Asian food habits and history. It involved a two hour interview with a graduate student where we talked about the food I ate growing up, and the food I eat now, and cultural identity. The interview brought up so many memories for me about how my mother managed to make familiar Taiwanese dishes while living in a small Canadian city with no access to a lot of ingredients she was used to. For example, my mother made her own sausage, and dumplings from scratch – she couldn’t even buy dumpling skins – she made it all herself. Also tofu. She made tofu from scratch. As in from soy beans. It was a three day process and took up half our kitchen. This is a core childhood food memory. I have many – maybe I’ll write a blog post about it some day.
Answering the questions for the study, I am simultaneously grateful that I don’t have to make my own tofu, and that my mother managed to find a way to feed us tofu from a young age. Because I love tofu and I’m glad it’s part of my culinary palate.

Looking Forward To:
-More Niagara on the Lake Trip Planning – I’ve booked theatre tickets at the Shaw Festival. Growing up, we went to the Stratford Festival many many times, but never the Shaw Festival, and it’s always been one of my dreams to see something at the Shaw Festival. We have tickets to see Wind in The Willows. One of the funny things is that a lot of the older performers at the Shaw and Stratfor Festivals are people I grew up seeing on stage – there’s something really cool about, thirty years later, knowing that they are still working.

-I’ve also booked a bike rental for the family – one of the days we’re there, we are going to spend the day biking around. The 14 year old wanted to have an e-bike; she was even going to pay the difference in fee herself – but apparently you have to be 16 in Canada to ride one.

-Not working on a show. My show has it’s one and only performance this week, then I don’t have another show to rehearse until late September. It’s been a long long summer. Actually, ever since January when we had a company shake-up, work has been a little unrelenting with gig after gig. “Booked and Blessed!” as they say. But also – it’s been a lot for the rest of the family too when I’m not home evening and weekends. I always feel ridiculous when I say I’m looking forward to time off to catch up on life, because most other people engage in paid work all year long and still manage to life.

-Very far off, but my brother managed to get a draw time for the LA Olympics in 2028, so he got tickets for all of us to go together to see Badminton prelims. It’s not the most high profile sport, but it was one of the few events with tickets available that was affordable (still in the $200-300 range per ticket). I’m excited; I played varsity badminton in high school so it will be fun to see it played at a high level. And I’ve never been to the Olympics before so just being there will be exciting.

-Just started this audiobook- it’s a cozy charming read.

A screen shot of a book cover. The title of the book is Welcome to Murder Week by Karen Dukess.

What We Ate:

Monday: Pasta with corn, mint, and red onions, a Melissa Clark recipe from the NYTimes. I had corn and tomato from the farmer’s market, and the request from the Husband was a pasta salad because I could make it ahead of time. I also threw in a can of chickpeas for protein. I thought this was really tasty – would make again, though only in the summer. It’s a peak produce required dish. I ate leftovers of this all week for dinner. Vegan because we ate it without the optional ricotta.

Taco Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos w/ black beans, cabbage, cheese.

Wednesday: Noodles with tofu and mushrooms with green beans on the side. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Waffles and eggs. I had the corn pasta salad from Monday.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and some movie. Not quite sure what it was. Maybe Empire Strikes Back? Or maybe they watched that on Saturday?

Saturday: Gnocchi and sausage. The Husband cooked. I had the corn pasta salad from Monday.

Sunday: Salmon and tofu teriyaki bowls, which morphed into making onigiri. I made salmon and tofu with my favorite teriyaki recipe (from Vegan for Everyone from America’s Test Kitchen). Also had mango, cucumbers, avocado, nori, and rice (brown and white rice), to make bowls. But then the kids wanted to make onigiri, so we did that.
(On a side note – I discovered that HMart sells nori that is layered between cellophane, so you can make onigiri, wrap it in the seaweed and cellophane, and the seaweed doesn’t get soggy, just like how you get them when you buy them in the store. This makes onigiri much more portable, and I’m so excited to try it out. Onigiri is one of my favorite foods.)

On the table is a package of seaweed and an onigiri next to it.

That’s the news that was. This weekend I have the one and only performance of our show. I hope the weather will be not too hot since we are at an outdoor venue. Now that work will have a bit of a lull, I’m looking forward to planning August and the new school year. I’m still having activity angst, but hopefully having some time to sit and think and not have to wedge those moments in on my work breaks will give me a bit of clarity. There also looks to be rain coming, so maybe some cozy indoor activities are in my future.

Any fun small adventures lately? Any foods from your childhood that you still eat regularly today? What should be our next food for summer taste testing? do you like onigiri? Do you have a favorite flavor? When was the last time you looked behind an appliance?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Kids activities give me existential angst

We had a lovely low key weekend –
Saturday, the Husband took the kids to Longwood Gardens. I stayed behind because I had to work. I ended up going out to dinner with my work friend after rehearsal because the family wasn’t home yet. We went to a mediocre Mexican restaurant – my friend wanted a Margarita. The menu featured some interesting Indian/Mexican fusion items like Paneer tacos and Chicken Tikka enchiladas. I was tempted to try the fusion-y items, but ultimately got ceviche, which was fine. At any rate, the company and conversation was good and sometimes I think the opportunity to commune is really what I’m paying for when I go out to eat.

Sunday, I managed to sneak in a run and trip to the Farm stand before going to work. Summer Produce!!! Makes me happy. I went to work for a very short rehearsal (only 1.5 hours!), and then I picked up the 14 year old from a friend’s house, went grocery shopping, and then joined the rest of the family for dinner at one of our favorite dumpling and noodle places. The Husband was already there with the 4 year old and the 9 year old and two of the 9 year old’s friends. They had gone to Dave and Buster’s earlier in the afternoon as a belated birthday celebration for the 9 year old. His birthday was in January, and we (I) just…. never got around to planning him a party then. But to my mind, Dave and Busters and noodles with two good friends is a better celebration than laser tag with ten so-so friends (which was his first choice that I never got around to planning).

I do worry that the 9 year old doesn’t seem to have much of a social life. Is this a boy thing? When our oldest was this age – well, it was COVID, so there’s that… but before COVID, she was constantly having play dates and hanging out with other friends. What do 9 year old boys do together? He’s mentioned video games, but I don’t think having another kid over for three hours of MarioKart is my ideal. Maybe I’m being judgmental and pearl-clutchy… He still likes Legos and building and imaginative play, and riding his bike but it seems that’s not the norm among the other kids in his class. He tells me that he’s the only kid in 3rd grade without a his own screen. I kind of doubt that. But maybe not?

Well in the world of other things I’m having existential angst about – I’m staring at August just around the corner, and I’m thinking, “Whoa, where did summer go?” Our school doesn’t start until the end of August, but I feel like I need to start thinking now about logistics of things. Actually I feel like I’m behind to figure out the logistics of things.

It always takes up a lot of mental energy to decide what activities to sign the kids up for. I feel really lucky that we live in an area where there are so many options for things to learn and sports to play, but also it makes for some really tough decisions. Or maybe they’re tough for me because I’m over thinking it? Okay, these are the ones on my mind right now.

Soccer- the 9 year old wants to play soccer, but his team from last year broke up at the end of the season because the parent coach decided not to coach anymore. It seems like in our area, by the time kids are 9 or 10 most kids play either travel or in more competitive leagues that practice 2-3 times a week. The 9 year old just wants a low pressure team that practices once a week, and there aren’t a lot of options for that. So I’m going to have to more research and see if I can find a place for him to play. There are maybe ten or fifteen different soccer leagues in our area…. Which is the right one? Will one of them be the right one???? Does it matter???

Tap dance- both the 6 year old and the 9 year old want to learn tap dances. But is that too many activities??? The 9 year old is an old soul home body so any time he expresses interest in doing something that will get him out of the house I want to jump on it.

Swimming – At the end of Summer Swim team season, there is always a lot of momentum around continuing swimming through the rest of the year. I had to silence the swim team parent’s WhatsApp group because the chatter about all the different swim programs (some competitive and some not) was starting to cause me anxiety and self doubt. The 14 year old wants to continue at the swim clinic she’s been doing for the past four years, but there were several parents on the chat that had really negative things to say about the lack of competent coaches in the program, which kind of got into my head. Also – we always carpooled with our neighbors to swim clinic, but I think they are looking for a different option for their kid who is swimming on her high school team now. All to say, I’m wondering if I need to find another swim option for the 14 year old. BUT it’s the one she wants to do and she’s not that serious- she just wants to swim laps once a week to stay in shape. So the easy answer is to just stick with the same thing.
Then there’s the question of the two younger kids. They could benefit from swimming all year – the 6 year old wants to do swim team next year and the 9 year old wants to get better at swimming. They aren’t good enough for the program the 14 year old does – so I have to find a different program for them. I don’t want to spend all my time on the internet researching swim programs, but i might have to invest some time.

Piano- I think we’re looking at 6:30am for the 14 year old’s piano lessons because of the early start time of high school. I don’t know why I’m having angst about this. It is what it is and at this point it’s just logistics. Also it means bringing the 6 year old with me at 6:30a and on the piano lesson / high school run because I can’t leave her at home by herself.

Gymnastics- the 6 year old wants to do gymnastics. Again there are at least four options to choose from, one of which – the closest one – we’ve done but is kind of a zoo so we would rather find a different one. So many choices.

Fencing- for the 9 year old. This i s not giving me angst because the Husband takes care of this.

And then there’s all those other classes and things that I think the kids would find fun, but really we don’t have the time or money or energy to do everything. But I feel like maybe I’m failing my kids not to let them try. And then also am I over-scheduling us? I had activities every night when I was this age, so it doesn’t feel excessive to me. But also – I work a lot of evenings and weekends so the burden would be on the Husband most of the time to get kids to activities. And on and on. And then I just put off thinking about it and then sign up s fill up and then we end up doing nothing. So. Maybe I need to make a spreadsheet.

Grateful For: Well, let’s turn from existential angst to things giving me existential joy right now:

-The 14 year old made me lunch one day this week when I was home in the afternoon. WE had gone to H-Mart and Costco that morning and she made me a plate of noodles, a bao, and onigiri. It was really sweet of her.

-The air conditioning works in our rehearsal room. The air conditioning is broken in the building we rehearse in, but at least it still works in the rehearsal hall. I am grateful for this every time I step our of the rehearsal hall and into the lobby and am immersed in a hot sauna of damp air.

-Cuddles with the 6 year old. Sometimes in the morning when I’m reading in bed, the youngest will get get into bed with me and just lie next to me while I read. It’s such a sweet moment. (Though brief because then she’s up asking for breakfast. )

-Two nights in a row I had an evening rehearsal cancelled because a singer was sick, and so had two unexpected evenings at home with the family.

-Going on a bike/run with the 9 year old after dropping his sister at camp – we went along Rock Creek Trail, he biked and I ran. The weather has been my ideal summer – dry, breezy, hovering in the mid 80s and rather perfect in the shade.

-Summer produce – Corn and tomatoes and beans and peaches and melons.

-My intern brought me an onigiri! It turns out there is a Japanese market ten minutes from work and he went there for lunch and brought me an onigiri. I don’t love gifting up at work, but he wouldn’t take my money, so I’ll have to repay him with an onigiri delivery another time. On that note, I’m really enjoying working with this intern – like me, he’s the child of Asian immigrants, so we’ve sort of bonded over our Asian parents and working in the arts and things like Asian hospitality (hence the refusing payment for the onigiri), and Asian fruit.

A cellophane wrapped triangle onigiri sitting next to a novel. — Mid rehearsal day snack and reading time.

Looking Forward To:

-Trying new Spindthrift flavors! Spindthrift is currently my favorite brand of bubbly water – I like that the flavours actually taste like fruit. Costco had this pack of new to me flavors- tropical passion fruit, cherry, and yuzu mandarin- , so I picked it up and am excited to try it. (I love passionfruit anything.)

-Tech week next week. It’s going to be fast and furious and hot. The venue is outdoors and currently the weather report is high 80s and 90s. I’m looking forward to the coolers of Gatorade that the venue stocks backstage and also the ginormous fans.

-One last day off before tech week. I’m going to boil eggs, set out my laundry, cut up fruit and vegetables, and stock up on candy (Twin Snakes! Gummy Nerds! Dark Chocolate). Also take my kids to all their activities.

-Hanging out with my friend K, who I haven’t seen all summer – we have plans to hang out on my day off before opening/closing night. (There’s only one performance.)

-what am I going to with all these peaches????

an orange cardboard box, full of ripe peaches — If you ever wonder what 25 lbs of peaches looks like – here it is.

-School supply shopping! Maybe. I love school supply shopping, but my kids find it tedious and thus make it painful for me.

-Bikes! We’re going to rent bikes one day while we’re in Niagara on the Lake, and I’m really excited.

-Reading more of this (so far) fun, frothy book (found in a Little Free Library!)

Annabel Monaghan's novel Dolly All the Time, a brightly coloured cover featuring a lady on a yacht. The book is in a sheet protector. — It’s in a sheet protector because I was reading it at the pool and I didn’t want it to get wet in my swim bag.

It’s crunch time at work, and I need all the light propulsive reads to get me through. I thought this was a fun list of page turners, both backlist and current buzzy novels.

What We Ate:

Monday: The family had pizza and cake at the swim team award ceremony. I was working and brought sesame noodle leftovers for dinner. The 14 year old got one of the Coach’s Choice awards – this is the third one that she’s got during her five years on swim team. I’m really proud of her – she’s not the fastest swimmer, but she’s an amazing teammate. The 6 year old’s paper plate award was “Born in the water”, the 9 year old’s was “Practice Hustler” (He didn’t swim in any meets, but they appreciated that he came to practices and worked hard), and the 14 year old’s was “Swiss Army Knife” because she could do anything. The 14 year old and the 9 year old also got their 5 year swim team awards, though the 9 year old spent 4 years on pre-team, so I’m a little dubious if he should be getting a 5 year award. But hey – not my call and it made him excited to get something that his little sister didn’t.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday returns after so many weeks at the pool! I made Cuban Garlic-y pork in the Instant Pot which the family ate with cabbage and guac. I had sesame noodles at work.

Wednesday: Roasted Salmon, with boiled Corn and steamed green beans. The 14 year old made dinner. Or started dinner. Then after she put the salmon in the oven, she threw up and went to bed and the Husband finished making dinner.

Thursday: Greek tofu lettuce wraps. The Husband cooked. I was at work (eating sesame noodles again. There were a lot of leftovers of that.)

Friday: Pizza (take out) and movie night. Not sure what movie was watched. I think it was a Ninjango movie. I had – you guessed it! Sesame noodles.

Saturday: Went out for Mexican with work friend. I think the Husband fed the last of the sesame noodles to the kids when they got home from Longwood Gardens.

Sunday: Noodles and dumplings and scallion pancakes and all sorts of yummy food at Yu Noodles.

That’s the news from last week here. I have one day of work and one free day this weekend so I don’t think there will be any grand adventures. But it will be nice not to have to rush around, I think.

Tell me, friends- what’s your favorite summer produce? How do you like to celebrate your birthday? What would you do with 25lbs of peaches? What was your favorite activity as a child?

Weekly recap + what we ate: oodles of gratitude

I started to write a post brain dumping all the things that happened last week, and it turns out that last week was one of those weeks where things were stressful, then they weren’t and I was just so grateful for the way people showed up to make things less stressful. So this is going to be a post of many gratitudes.

You know what makes gratitudes float to the surface for me? When unfortunate things happen and then suddenly everything is okay and you see your way through. There were two really stressful, unfortunate things that happened last week- two things that would make my monthly “lowlight” list. And not to be toxically positive, but in the end things worked out. So here we go:

Thing ONE: On Tuesday I was driving to work, listening to an audioplay of Agatha Christie’s ABC Murders. This is a pretty fantastic adaptation with added backstory and historical context and music and sound effects. When I first hear the high pitched whine as I was driving down the freeway, I thought it was just a sound effect- I had gotten to a particularly tense part of the action. But then after a while I noticed that the high pitched whine and scraping noise wasn’t going away. In fact, it seemed…. oh no… it seemed to be coming from my car. From underneath my car. I hit pause on the audioplay and opened my window just so I could hear better and it definitely was not coming from the play.

I was two minutes from work by the, so I just continued on my way. As soon as I got to work, I parked the car and looked underneath it. And this is what I saw:

In case it’s not exactly clear – above is a picture of the underside of my car with the exhaust pipe on the ground. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point on my commute, the exhaust pipe fell away and I had been dragging it under me down the freeway.

I did panic a little bit. My summer job is 20 miles from home and there was not really a way to get home without getting back on the freeway. I grabbed my things and went inside and called the Husband. I feel somewhat ashamed to say I called my Husband rather than taking care of it myself, but I didn’t want to feel like I had to solve this alone. He offered to call the tow truck, if I could find a place to which to get the car towed. Well at this point all my co-workers go involved and it began a cascade of things that went from “Oh my gosh this is terrible” to “I’m realizing so many lucky things!” If my exhaust hadn’t fallen off, the following amazing things wouldn’t have happened:

– That my boss has a nearby mechanic that solved the exact same issue for her two years ago, and she gave me his number.

– That my co-worker has a minor understanding of cars, having taken his side door panel off one time to replace a mirror, and when I showed him the picture he said, one could just tie/ gaff tape the pipe up to the chassis and be able to drive the car home.

-That the Husband could also just text our mechanic a picture of the whole debacle and ask if he had time to look at it tomorrow morning and Nestor said, “Yes.” so we decided to just try to get the car home and to Nestor.

=That the same co-worker on our lunch break would be willing to find two clothes hangers, crawl under my car, and attach the pipe to the chassis. In his nice work clothes. In a hot summer parking lot.

-That I would actually be grateful for the slow rush hour traffic home/ to my mechanic so I didn’t have to drive too fast with my clothes hanger-fixed car.

-That the mechanic’s is two blocks from the library so after I dropped the car, I had a nice place to wait for the Husband and kids to come pick me up.

-That we have a second car so I could still take the kids to their piano lessons the next morning and the 9 year old to camp.

-That even though it was going to be a pain in the ass to get to work the next day without a car – my summer gig is nowhere near a Metro station – my co-worker did not hesitate to say “Yes” when I asked if I could metro to him and ride in to work with him.

-That the 14 year old could get a ride to the swim meet the next day with our neighbors if she needed to.

-That another lady I work with actually lives five blocks from me and said she would give me a ride home after work the next day. “And I’d be glad for the company,” she wrote.

-That, amazingly, after all the texts and emails asking for help, our mechanic welded back a replacement exhaust pipe by noon the next day, saying that was faster and cheaper than ordering a new one. (Also he complimented the clothes hanger job that my co-worker did attaching the exhaust pipe to the chassis, saying he would have done the exact same thing.). And it all cost less than $400.

So in the end, I managed to drive myself to work and back the day after the whole incident, but knowing that I could ask for help getting to and from work and getting kids where they needed to be, was such a huge comfort and filled me with so much gratitude.

So the car was Thing One last week. Thing Two was the smoke from Canadian wildfires. I woke up Friday morning and the skies looked foggy. But it wasn’t fog. How awful the fires must be that we were feeling the effects so far south. But even among the smoke and terrible air quality, here is what I was grateful for:

-That we still had masks from COVID times so that when we did have to be outside, we could protect ourselves.

-That the people at work went to Home Depot and immediately bought us air purifiers for the rehearsals room.

-That even though we couldn’t go to the pool with visiting family, everyone went bowling and then to church together and it was still a lovely time.

-That it rained Saturday night and cleared the air so we could have our last swim meet on Sunday morning.

-And here’s the big one, the act of kindness that left me gob smacked (apologies in advance for the long backstory) So Swim Team Divisionals were last weekend. Because of the large contingent of observant Jews at our pool, our swim team does not swim on Saturdays. In this past, the other teams in our division just agreed to have Divisionals on Sunday, but this year, for whatever reason, the other teams wanted to stick to Saturday. So our pool would swim Divisionals on our own on Sunday, and our swim times would be submitted to the Saturday times for final results.

Well, the upshot was that late Friday night, because of the air quality the Saturday Divisionals were moved to Sunday, which meant that our swim team could swim with everyone else and not on our own. Yay. Only this meant that we would be swimming at a different pool with a warm up time of 7:30am, when previously we were supposed to swim at our own pool at 8:00am.

On top of all that, by the time these decisions were made, it was Saturday, and our Team Rep and most of the team were observing Shabbat, which meant that they weren’t using technology. Well one of the other swim team moms, M, stepped up and took over coordinating with the other teams about our team joining Divisionals on Sunday. Not only that, M texted every swim team parent individually to tell them about the change, and then, in case people were observing Shabbat, if she didn’t get a response to her text, she went to that family’s house, knocked on their door, and told them in person or left a hand written note to tell them that the meet location had changed for the next day. It was such an act of generosity and inclusion – a really awesome show of the human capacity for kindness.

So I guess last week I felt a bit of emotional whiplash, with bad news and anxiety alternating with good news and displays of kindness. I’m glad the tally ended up with more points in the good news and displays of kindness category.

Five more fun things last week:
-World Cup Finals. We watched the first half of the third place England France game during our lunch break at work, and then I distractedly followed the news coverage of the second half while in rehearsals. It was wild. I didn’t have to work on Sunday afternoon – rehearsal was specifically not scheduled during the game at the request of our Spanish conductor. I was actually late for work because I was glued to the tv once the game went into extra time. I did leave home once Spain scored, keeping my fingers crossed that Argentina wouldn’t have one of their dramatic comebacks.

-We are done with Swim Team for the season. Yay! But now that we don’t have to be at the pool five nights a week, I sort of miss it…. I love that at one of the last swim practices one of the coaches spent an extra half hour working on dives with the 14 year old and some other kids. And he even taught the 6 year old how to dive.

-On Wednesday, while the 9 year old was at piano lessons, the other two kids and I went to the park and I sat on a swing and swung. Maybe I’m too old to be swinging on a swing, but it is a glorious feeling.

-The 9 year old went to fencing camp last week. The Husband has been the one taking him to fencing classes so this is my first time seeing the facility. It can be quite loud. Also he has to put on a lot of gear to fence. Also – the first day, I walked in and was greeted by a guy with a baby strapped to his chest in a carrier. I thought, “Well I guess that baby’s good as protective gear…” Later on, the 9 year old assured me that the guy was just the person who ran the camp and he did not do any actual fencing with the baby attached to him.

-While the 9 year old was a camp, the 14 year old watched the 6 year old, even taking her to see the new live action Moana one afternoon. I’m glad they are having some bonding time. We do pay the 14 year old to watch her youngest sibling, but only if she invoices us. The Husband got her one of those receipt pads, and it’s been kind of delightful to see her submit invoices. (Although I do admit she does sell herself short – she doesn’t charge for watching her siblings on days that the Husband works from home and she doesn’t charge for watching the 9 year old because technically he can stay home by himself.) (Other note – I do ask myself if we really should be paying her to watch her siblings, or if that should be part of the general “being a responsible older sibling” deal. BUT – a) I want her to see value in childcare and other underpaid labour, and 2) I want her to see value in her own time. So if it’s just a trip to the grocery store, we don’t pay her, but for something more than an hour or two where she truly has to be in charge and maybe make them a meal and take them to the park, then, yes, we pay her. Thought we do pay her less than we pay an outside sitter.)

Bonus thing: The 6 year old lost a tooth. The tooth fairy brought her a dollar. Apparently this particular tooth fairy is not paying market rate for a tooth. Apparently the internet says the going rate for a tooth is $5. That’s highway robbery. The kids sure have some kind of racket going on.

Looking Forward To:
-Peach Truck! Our Peach Truck pick up is this weekend! 25 lbs of fresh peaches coming our way!

-I did book theatre tickets for next week, so excited for that.

-The Fall Opera season and our new office set up. We’re re-purposing space in our office and the stage managers will now share and office with the technical department – I’m looking forward to having them close by because they are such smart and funny people. I’ve spend many hours moving furniture and purging things from our office. It feels nice to throw out things that haven’t been used in 20 years.

-Our cleaners coming. This is super bougie, but the lady who cleans our house biweekly has been on vacation. We have been somewhat keeping up with cleaning, but there is some magical sheen about the house when our cleaner goes over everything. Plus she changes our sheets.

-Going to the National Gallery of Art on my next free day. I think I had mentioned that there is a Mary Cassatt exhibit and an exhibit on painting of Niagara Falls. I want to catch this before our Niagara Falls trip and I think next Wednesday is the one day to do it.

(but also – side note – there is this banner at the top of the NGA’s website:

The banner at the top says, “Due to our location you’ll need a ticket to the Freedom 250 Grand Prix to visit us on August 22 and 23.” I’m trying not to clutch my pearls too hard about it, to consider if I would feel so icky about this if, say, Obama had signed the Executive order to make this race happen…? But it seems and awful shame to close off the museum, and most of the National Mall to non ticket holders for two days. I guess at least the tickets were free??? maybe??)

What We Ate:

Monday: Snack dinner at the pool – charcuterie, crackers, cheese, and fruit.

Tuesday: Black bean and corn quesadillas and watermelon at the pool.

Wednesday: Pasta bake – the 14 year old made dinner. I don’t think she followed a recipe- just sauteed sausage and onions, boiled pasta, and then put it in a pan with cheese and put it in the oven to bake.

Thursday: Chicken drumsticks and broccoli at the pool.

Friday: Pizza and a movie. I’m not sure what movie – I was at work.

Saturday: Sausage sandwiches. A clean out the fridge meal.

Sunday: I made Sesame noodles – both a vegetarian version and a chicken version – for the Swim Team Pasta Dinner (that was originally scheduled for Friday night, but then moved to Sunday because of air quality.)

Welp that was the news from last week. This weekend, I’m working both Saturday and Sunday. Maybe I’ll get to go to work early enough on Saturday to visit the Farmer’s Market. The Peach Truck is coming! The 9 year old is having a long awaited “birthday” trip to Dave and Busters. I hear the family might go to Longwood Gardens while I’m at work? Next week is August – summer is wrapping up. I’m relieved and also sad. I still haven’t painted my nails or done a chocolate covered donut taste test…. But there is still yet time!

Have you ever had to McGyver something? What is the going rate for a tooth where you are? What should I do with 25 lbs of peaches?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye June; Hello July!

We’re back from our holiday weekend of Taiwan camp (the kids) and reading retreat (the Husband and me). Last week was a short week of work for me, which was nice since my mother, brother, and niece were in town. My brother was only staying long enough to drop off my niece who would be going to Taiwan camp with my kids and my mother later in the week, but before he left, we did manage a trip to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum out by Dulles Airport.

The Udvar-Hazy Center is probably the more impressive museum here in DC, featuring two large hanger with over 200 air and space crafts. Some really famous aircrafts are there, like the Enola Gay (the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima), the Concorde, and the space shuttle Discovery. There is also an observation tower where you can see the planes land and take off from Dulles Airport. When we went up, there was a docent in front of a flight tracker screen and he told us all about how you can track information about commercial flights – their paths, their altitudes, etc. He was using an app called FlightRadar24 and it was really neat to see and think about all those planes taking all those people to all those cities.

It’s always fun to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center – also pretty cool that it’s a Smithsonian Museum so admission is free, though parking is $15. But you know what’s not fun? Getting home from there. The Udvar-Hazy Center is actually close to my summer job, and if you’ve been around here, I’m sure you’ve heard me complain about the commute. Well it took us almost 90 minutes to get home from visiting the aircrafts. So much ugh.

The rest of the end of June/ beginning of July was taking the kids to Taiwan Camp – twice! My mother, niece, and the 6 and 9 year old went up on Wednesday for the first day of camp, and the 14 year old went on Thursday because she was doing basketball camp that week too. After dropping the 14 year old, the Husband and I went on our reading retreat, which I’ll recap in another post, but here’s a preview:

One of the four bookstores we visited over two days.

We didn’t do much for the 4th of July since we were hunkered and reading and it was so very very hot and then there was that huge storm. Sunday we picked everyone up from Taiwan camp. After a stop for ice cream – actually two stops because the first place I wanted to go was closed because they had lost power, a sad fate for an ice cream shop – we took my mom and my niece to the airport – they were flying back to California that night. My nuclear family headed home where we unpacked, had dinner, played a round of MarioKart and then sent the kids to bed. The Husband and I watched the Mexico v. England soccer game. What a wild ride of a game that was!

I ended up staying up way past the end of the game because it turns out my mom and niece’s 7pm flight was delayed due to the weather – we’d been having super rainy thunderstorms. I thought I might have to go pick them up if their flight got cancelled, but it wasn’t officially cancelled until 12:30am. They got re-booked on a flight this morning at 6am so decided to stay at the airport. What a travel ordeal. What was originally a direct flight from BWI to SFO was, the next day, a flight from BWI to Chicago to San Diego to San Francisco. And after that they still had to get home to Berkeley. Props to my mom for dealing with all that. I hope neither my mom or my niece are terribly scarred by all that. Some times you just get really unlucky travel days.

And now I’m home and ready to jump into another show. But before I get too deep into the month, shall we look at how June 2o26 was?

June Highlights:
-Going to a weekday matinee of The Devil Wears Prada 2 with my friend.

-Piano recitals for the 9 and 14 year old. Voice recital for the 14 year old.

-Summer produce from the Farmer’s market.

-The 14 year old’s promotion ceremony – she is finished with middle school! High school here we come.

-Dentist appointments for me and the kids. To do checked off. (Did I mention my dentist has an office beagle???):

-So much pool time – swim meets, swim practices, swimming laps, cooling off in the waters.

-The last day of school for the other two kids. Yay we survived our first school year without day care payments. Not that life gets any less expensive. It’s just the money goes different places.

-My first foray to Royal Farms for their fried chicken.

-The first show at my summer gig – tech/ opened/ closed. Getting to work with a new to me Technical Director who was so good at her job and really cared about the singers not just being safe on stage, but also feeling safe on stage.

Our set – I think this is one of the prettiest sets I’ve ever worked on.

-Going to see Shakespeare in the Park – As You Like It. How lovely to be watching the residents of the Forest of Arden get matched and unmatched under the stars.

-Picnic lunch with three friends from college. So great to catch up.

-Seeing the Tall Ships in Baltimore Harbor.

-Visits from my brother, niece, and mother. Going to hot pot and the Udvar-Hazy museum.

-I went running three times! It’s pretty paltry, but it’s more than the month before, so I’m kind of stoked about it.

– Watching the World Cup. So we don’t have Fox, but we do have Telemundo via Peacock, so I’ve been watching all the games in Spanish, which is actually really fun because I feel like I can focus on the game and not get side tracked by the commentary. Plus I get to hear the most famous announcements of “Goooooooooool!”

-Favorite Dinner this month: Take out Style Sesame Noodles w/ teriyaki chicken. Perfect meal for the pool – can be eaten cold, packs a lot of flavor and vegetables and filling enough to fuel swim meets.

-Favorite thing we watched: Derry Girls. hilarious. The Husband said it actually reminded him a lot about his childhood growing up in Indiana.

June Lowlights:
-Some house things with my parent’s rental unit. Unbloggable, but it seems like every month there’s always something. I guess that’s just the price of owning a home. (literally….)

-The awful commute to and from my summer gig. Sorry if you’re tired of hearing about this one, but it is a truly awful time suck.

-Feeling very stretched. I think this is a lot to do with the point above – I spend so much time commuting that I’m finding I don’t have as much time for other life/family things. Spoiler alert – this will probably also be a July lowlight too….

-I got a stupid parking ticket. Again. This was totally my fault- I was just making a quick stop and I didn’t pay the meter. Stupid mistake.

Checking in on 2026 Aspirations:
Creativity:
-painted two pictures (10/26 pictures painted for the year.)
-wrote 1 haiku (16/52 haikus written this year… need to work on this.)
-finished two crossword puzzles (My goal is to finish one every week, but I got behind)

Consumption:
-1 live performance – As You Like It
-1 Museum – Udar-Hazy Center (see above!)
-0 hikes. (need to work on this….)

Health:
I was rubbish at tracking exercise in June. But I did start swimming while the kids were at swim team practice. It’s been too hot for me to go running consistently. But I did run inconsistently.
-Daily yoga – I think this was 25/30 days. Like I said – rubbish tracking in June.
-3 vegan dinners. Two of those were the Teriyaki Tofu from America’s Test Kitchen. It is that good. And easy. (goal is 5 vegan dinners a month, but given that we were at the pool almost every night, I’d say any vegan dinner is a plus.)

Quote of the Month:
“You can’t thrive for free”
-from Netflix’s Beef. Said by the Ali Wong character to her mother in law in regards to the cost of raising a child. I thought this was hilarious. Also we watched an episode of Beef and I don’t know if I’ll return for the rest – it’s pretty dark and full of people doing things that range from unfortunate to reprehensible. Not my jam. I know it was critically acclaimed. sigh. Sometimes I don’t feel cool enough for the critically acclaimed media that everyone loves.

Looking Forward to in July:
-Starting rehearsals for my second opera this summer. Excited to again be working with some great colleagues.

-World Cup. I have rehearsal on the afternoon of the World Cup Finals. Today I asked my stage manager if we could move rehearsal. I was only half kidding.

-planning our Niagara Trip. The trip isn’t until August, but planning is part of the fun, right?

-speaking of which, there is an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art featuring paintings of Niagara Falls, I want to try to take the kids before our trip – might be a fun tie in. Also there’s a Mary Cassatt exhibit there too. Might be the same one I saw in Philadelphia, but Cassatt is always worth seeing either way.

-Peach Truck Peaches!!! I ordered a 25 lb box of peaches from the Peach Truck.

-Digging into the pile of books I bought on my reading retreat:

Grateful for the week:

-$2.50 ice cream scoops for 4th of July.

I got a peanut butter chocolate pretzel.

-This imperfect country that celebrated its birthday last week. Look, there are a lot of not great things happening. BUT… I once had to spend three days at the INS office replacing my lost green card and I realized that there are much worse things going on in other countries. Things are messed up, but in the scheme of things, we’re really very lucky we live in America.

-That my mother, brother, and niece came to visit. It was nice to spend time with them. I got to have a few moments of one on one time with my niece, and we talked about books and school and food, and it was cool to see her becoming her own person.

-Slow mornings with the family and not having to rush to get to school or work.

-That the kids had a good time at Taiwan camp.

-Air conditioning.

-Food that lasts in the fridge. Actually refrigeration in general. We got home from our holiday weekend away and I was going to make our pantry standby of pasta with red sauce for dinner, but I was unexcited by the prospect, so I looked in the fridge and there was some ground turkey from before we left. I looked up ground turkey recipes and found this recipe for Italian Wedding Soup, and in addition to the turkey, it needed kale (which had been in our fridge for at least two weeks) and eggs (which were from at least two weeks ago), lemons (at least a week old), parmesan cheese (who knows how old that is..) and other things that we had in our pantry (chicken broth, pasta, panko break crumbs). Instead of parsley and garlic, I dumped the week old zhug sauce (from when we had shawarma earlier in the week) into the meatball mix. It felt really good to use up bits and bobs to make a really tasty meal that was a step above plain pasta and red sauce.

What we ate:

Monday: Cauliflower Sheetpan Shawarma with Tahini Sauce and Zhoug Sauce. My brother was visiting and he’s vegetarian. And I had a cauliflower to use up, so this was perfect. Honestly, though, it’s all about the sauces.

Tuesday: Chicken Wings and steamed green beans – eaten at the pool. My mother made her famous soy garlic chicken wings.

Wednesday: We ordered Indian Food for dinner – The 14 year old’s choice since it was her first time being alone with her parents since she was five, before we had more babies.

Thursday: Grabbed food on the road while driving 14 year old to Taiwan camp. I got Naan Tacos from a place called Tikka Shack Indian Grub, which I guess is a chain. They were really tasty.

Friday: Made dinner from stuff we picked up at the markets – Sage pork chops, steamed green beans, corn, salad, sauerkraut. it was delicious.

The salad is in a pot because the Air BnB did not have serving bowls. What the what????

Saturday: Went out to an Indian restaurant for dosas. Wow typing this out, i’m realizing that I had Indian for dinner three times this week. I do Love Indian food. If I had to choose a last meal, I would have a hard time deciding between noodles and dumplings or Indian Food.

Sunday: Italian Wedding Soup with Turkey Meatballs from NY Times Cooking. This was fast, and easy. I added dollops of Ricotta on top for added creaminess.

And onwards we move into July. 2026 now has more days behind us than in front of us – whew, that’s a thought.

What critically acclaimed tv show do you not get? What cuisine could you eat multiple times a week and not get tired of it? Favorite pantry meal? Are you watching the World Cup too? Can you thrive for free????

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tall Ships and Swim Meets

It’s July, and a scorcher of a weekend coming up for the July 4th Holiday. Two of the kids are at Taiwan camp, we’ll take the third kid up tonight, and then the Husband and I will be off at our reading retreat! The first full week of summer break has been a little … laissez-faire. I didn’t have to work every day; my mother, brother, and niece came to visit; everyone stayed up late and slept in. There were library visits, dentist appointments, and lots of time at the pool. The lack of routine is starting to leave me a little discombobulated, so I think some structure is needed… after this holiday weekend.

On Friday we went to Baltimore for Sail 250, a festival of Tall Ships from all over the world gathering in honor of America’s 250th birthday. There were three harbors in Baltimore lined with Tall Ships, but we only had time to visit the ships in the Inner Harbour. All the ships were open to the public to go aboard for free, and they all had sailors available to answer questions. I found talking to the sailors one of my favorite parts of touring the boats – it really brought a human touch to our experience. They all spoke varying degrees of English, and all were eager to answer questions to the best of their abilities and we always managed to understand each other.

I like to encourage the kids to be engaged when we have these experiences, so I told them that if they asked five questions on at least two different vessels, we could have ice cream later in the day. The 6 year old started out by asking the same question on all the ships (“How many people are on this ship?”) but then we told her that she had to come up with something more original, and she did. Hopefully the kids can learn to tap into their sense of curiosity and asking questions not just an annoying thing mom makes them do….

All the modern tall ships are training vessels, aboard which navel cadets learn about navigation and seamanship and engineering while at sea. Some ships are also ambassador ships that sail to different countries on goodwill missions. We visited five working ships as well as two vessels from Baltimore’s Historic Ship Museum. As a bonus, these Historic Ships that are always in Baltimore Harbour were free to visit as well during Sail 250. We visited the following ships:

NRP Sagres, from Portugal – On the upper level of this ship was several casks of Portuguese port. This ship had three steering wheels in the helm (am I even using the right words?) – well actually four: three for regular navigation all grouped together and one on the other side of the mast for emergency navigation.

Gorch Fock, from Germany – This ship was HUGE, probably the biggest one we saw that day. The Husband asked if they also had casks of alcohol, given that the Portuguese ship had port and they said they had beer. Then the Husband made some quip like, “I guess you like your beer warm.” To which the sailor replied, “No, that’s the English.”
The other best thing about this ship was the lady who came aboard carrying a dog. She would go up to the sailors and say, “Do you want to say hi?” Which would gain her some very confused looks. Then she would say, “I figured you’ve been on the sea for so long, you might be missing the chance to pet a dog.” It was both bizarre and really thoughtful.
One other thing I loved about this ship was getting a glimpse of the cook working in the kitchen. Kitchens aboard a ship are such models of efficiency. They have to feed over a hundred people with a kitchen the size of a closet.

ROU Capitan Miranda, from Uruguay – I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Uruguay flag before, and I loved how big and sunny it was, displayed on this ship.

My favorite thing that I saw on this ship was how neat an precisely the ropes were coiled:

Twenty years ago, the first opera I worked on for my current company was Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd (adapted from the Melville novella.), set aboard a Man-o-War. The opening scene featured the chorus and supers as Sailors rushing downstage and pulling ropes upstage from these neat coils. The stage managers spent so much time in rehearsal coiling ropes so that they would be set correctly and unfurl smoothly. So when I saw these ropes coiled on the deck of Capitan Miranda, I gave a gasp of recognition. Our ropes in the show had to be coiled like the circle in the background, not the figure eights in the foreground, but it was so cool to realize that we were doing something in rehearsal that sailors really did. I can’t even fathom how the figure eight coil is done. I might have to go watch a YouTube video on that.

USS Torsk – this was a submarine, built in 1944 and part of the Historic Ships collection in Baltimore Harbor. Visiting the submarine really brought home how close the quarters are aboard and also how efficiently space was used. The 14 year old ask the docent a question, about how accurate was the movie Crimson Tide. The docent laughed and said that while a lot of it was accurate, really the two movies which really capture life aboard the submarine were Operation Petticoat and Down Periscope. I immediately put those two movies on our movie watch list. The 14 year old also asked a very macabre question about how people are rescued from submarines when things go wrong.

INS Sudarshini from India – This was a smaller ship, but probably the one that came the furthest. It left India six months ago and sailed to America via the Suez Canal and through the Mediterranean. One thing that struck me about this ship was that all the signs and labels on the ship were in English – I asked the sailor about this and he said that there is a standard Indian English that they are all taught. Another thing I really liked about visiting this ship was that there were a lot of other American South Asians aboard and I loved seeing how they and the sailors would really engaged in conversations – imagine sailing half way across the world and finding people, hearing your language, from your home country in Baltimore!

USS Constellation – this was the second of the Historic Ships that we visited. It is a Sloop-o-War, built in 1854. This was the kids’ favorite ship because the second level below deck, were lined with canons. There was also one level – the level where the sleeping quarters were – that were lined with hammocks. I might have climbed into a hammock and dozed off for a few minutes. Here the 6 year old asked, “How do the ships get here?” meaning into the harbour, and we were told all about tug boats.

La Belle Poule from France – this was the last ship we visited and was one we made sure to visit since the two younger kids are learning French in school. (Well, technically, all three kids are learning French, but the 6 and 9 year old are in an immersion program and speak it more readily.) The 9 year old still hadn’t fulfilled his question quota by the time we got to La Belle Poule, so I made him a deal – if he asked his question in French then each question could count for two. And he did! He even asked THREE questions! “Is the food good?” “What kind of food do you eat?” and “Why is the ship called La Belle Poule?” This latter was funny because when I first mentioned this ship, the kids started calling it “The chicken boat” because poule/poulet is French for chicken. But apparently the ship is named after the King’s mistress. I think the French sailor was very amused by the little American boy talking to him in perfect French and I was really tickled by it as well. I’m feeling ready to send him to France on his own now! (Not really, but I feel like between my French and his French we’ll get by okay in parts of France outside of Paris…)

Ships bell- the placard on the wall has instructions on how to ring the time.

In between ships we had lunch from the food trucks that were in the Festival area. By the point, everyone was pretty tired so I left them at the food demonstration tent (where they watched a chef make peach gazpacho) and I went to forage from the food trucks. I got Jamaican food and some pupusas. The interesting thing to me about pupusas is that I love them, but I never get a chance to eat them, so I was very excited to order some. However, pupusas show up regularly on the school lunch menu and the kids were decidedly not excited that this is what I brought them to eat. “This is school food!” one of the kid said. Well fine – they ate the Jerk chicken and beef patties instead. (The the 14 year old went to get tacos…)

So all in all, it was a really great excursion – the weather was sunny and hot, but not unbearably so, the ships were fascinating to visit and (with prodding) the kids displayed a minor amount of curiosity and engagement. Sail250 ran for five days and I wished we could have gone back for a second day and seen more ships, particularly since on the weekend there was an airshow as well. When we were there on the Friday, we got to see some of the planes practicing their maneuvers, which was loud and fun, especially the trio of planes that puffed out red, white, and blue smoke in their wake. Most of the practice runs were done over another harbour, though, so we didn’t catch as many as we could have on Friday. I would have also loved to see the ships actually put their sails up as they came in and out of the Harbour. But I think going on the Friday was a good choice because it wasn’t too crowded and the lines to board the ships weren’t too long.

Grateful For (so many swim team related gratitudes this week!):
-A drizzly swim meet. On Sunday morning, the 14 year old had a swim meet – this is one of the more fun meets of the year because it’s the Relay Carnival, which is all relay races. The 14 year old, though, was swimming in events 20 and 22 (out of 22) and the Coaches race (she’s not technically a coach, but the team coaches couldn’t participate for various reasons and the 14 year old does teach the pre-team, so they figured that qualified her to swim the coaches’ race.) All of which meant, we arrived at the meet at 8:15am for warm up, and she didn’t swim until 12:30pm. I’m giving her big props for staying engaged and warm and cheering on her teammates. But also – it drizzled steadily for the whole morning. It wasn’t thundering or raining hard enough for it to be dangerous to swim, so the meet just persisted. I had to time during the second half of the meet, and all our timing sheets were in plastic bags so they wouldn’t disintegrate. And the meet to a long time because there were a lot of disqualifications, which means those need to be cleared up before the next race can start. One parent did the math and said he figured each race was taking 15-20 minutes to run because of all the DQs.
But you know, there were moments when I was out there with rain dripping off my head, wiping my glasses clean for the umpteenth time, and I thought, “Well thank goodness it’s not 100 degrees and sunny.” Because, I think I would really rather work a rainy swim meet than a blazing hot swim meet.

-Stroke and turn judges. This one is also swim meet related – all the swim meets are staffed by parent (guardian/grown up) volunteers – the race coordinators, the timers, the referees, the people inputting the times, the stroke and turn judges. I have thought about doing the stroke and turn training, but I feel like I would feel bad about DQing a kid and it feels like a lot of pressure. But my friend who is a stroke and turn judge says that they are told not to think of it as DQing a kid, but rather giving the kid’s coach the information to help the kid be a better swimmer. If no one notes when a stroke is being done incorrectly, the swimmer can’t correct it. I really like that framing. I’m always worried about how to give feedback and thinking about it as wanting someone to do well is a good way to look at it.

-Libby and Little Free Libraries for making books easy to come by.

-Swim practice being rained out so that we could have Family Game Night instead. We played Dixit and had a lovely quiet evening at home.

-The Pool that hosted Wednesday’s swim meet for keeping the baby pool open for visitors. A lot of the time during a swim meet, the rest of the pool shuts down, but the pool where we had the Wednesday swim meet at kept the main pool and the baby open so people could still use them while the meet was going on. I had to bring the 6 year old along to the meet, so I was grateful that she could play in the water while her big sister swam.

-That my mother can still come visit us. My mother is 77 years old and still has the energy and inclination to come visit even though it means flying across the country. I’m realizing, especially since we had kids on the later side, that every visit from my parents is a gift and I am so grateful for each moment we all have together. She is also very independent and eager to take the kids on adventures – I’m grateful that I don’t have to worry about entertaining her when she is here; we can have life as usual, with a few extra adventures thrown in if we want.

-Online shopping. Okay, I know there are all sorts of ecological evils associated with online shopping, but I needed a new tankini top, and bathing suit shopping (well most clothes shopping, let’s be honest) is so disheartening for me. I’m very grateful that I could just order a bunch of tankinis from Title Nine and try them out at home. These are the two that I ended up with:

I feel a little frumpy at the pool, but the tankini is my swimwear of choice, particularly in a bright print – I can go to the bathroom easily, it covers my stomach, and these ones are also suitable for me to swim laps. I guess I’m just very practical pool-wise.

Looking Forward To:
-Our Reading Retreat! Is finally about to happen. I’ve also booked a tour of the Pennsylvania State Capitol while we are in Harrisburg. It’s going to be so hot! I almost regret not booking a place with a pool, but as long as we have AC and comfy couches, I think it will be a good time.

-Starting work on a new show next week.

-Hearing how the kids like Taiwan Camp.

-Listening to this audiobook on our drive to Taiwan Camp and Reading Retreat:

What We Ate:
Monday: Vegan Pesto Pasta Salad from NY Times Cooking. Meant to be an easy pool dinner, but it rained, so we ate it at home. Always a hit. Vegan.

Tuesday: Zucchini Boats. We had a bunch of zucchini to use up so I stuffed them with a ground beef/black bean/salsa mixtures, topped with cheese and baked. It wasn’t the idea pool food, but it worked well enough.

Wednesday: Sandwiches and leftover pasta salad at the pool for the swim meet. Though we also bought hot dogs and fries from the pool snack bar.

Thursday: Chicken pasta salad – based on this recipe for Cilantro Mint Lettuce Wraps from the NY Times. I had planned to make the lettuce wraps, but then we used the lettuce for salad, so I made the chicken into pasta salad instead, adding cucumbers and grapes for crunch. I don’t know that the fusilli worked – I probably should have used noodles – but I did like the flavors of this dish.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Operation Petticoat, 1959 movie starring Cary Grant, Tony Curtis and a submarine. We watched this after coming home from Sail250 because it was what the docent on the submarine recommended. This was such a delightful movie. Surprisingly, the kids all really enjoyed this one and asked, “Can we watch more movies that are funny like this?” So if anyone has any suggestions for screwball comedies with snappy dialogue, funny performances, and lots of physical humour, send them our way!

Saturday: Teriyaki Tofu and Steam Broccoli from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone. My brother is vegetarian, so I always use his visits as an excuse to make some of my favorite vegan/vegetarian recipes. This one is always a winner. I had to work this night, so I prepped it all and the 14 year old baked the tofu, steamed the broccoli, and made the rice.

Sunday: We went out for Hot Pot. My brother is from Berkeley, CA and has so much good food there, that I always hope he doesn’t get bored of the food options when he comes to visit us. One thing he always wants to do, though, is go to Hot Pot – I guess our Hot Pot has the best vegetarian options that he’s found anywhere. A new feature at our hot pot place, though:

They now hand out bibs and hair ties! We made good use of those bibs for the little kids, and I will say the adults probably should have used some too.

Well that was the week that was last. I hope everyone who is affected by this heatwave is staying cool this weekend. Happy Canada Day to those that celebrate, and Happy Fourth of July to those that celebrate that.

Do you have a favorite “classic” film? Have you ever been on a Tall Ship? Are pupusas a common food for you? What is your swim wear of choice?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Where I Went one week in June. Spoiler I’ve become one with my car….

School is finally over for the kids. We’re moving into summer mode and the weather has followed suit. Summer Solstice has come and gone so now the days are getting shorter, but still will hopefully be a while until they feel super short….

It’s been a while since I’ve done a “Where I went” post, and as I was sitting in my car last week, I thought it might be a fun to take a snapshot of my life from that lens. So this is where I went for one week in June 2026. Maybe it’s boring reading? I know some of my drives were boring….

MONDAY:
9am: Home—> bus stop. (4 mins)

9:15a: Bus stop —> Home (4 mins)

10:30a: Home —> work (20 mins- Amazing!!! Must be because it’s Monday and construction is light.)

5:00pm: Work —> the auditorium where the 14 year old’s promotion ceremony is. (1 hr. Ugh. Glad I left early)

8:45pm: Promotion ceremony –> Back to work for the rest of the evening rehearsal. (23 mins) No time to cry or be nostalgic about the fact that my oldest is now on to high school!

11:30pm Work –> Home (45 mins. Usually going home after work is a breeze because it’s late a night, but there is a bunch of midnight construction going on on the beltway that’s slowly killing my soul and the commute home took twice as long as it ought.)

Total time in car: 2h 36m

TUESDAY:
9:00am: Home –> Kids to bus stop (4 mins)

9:15am: Bus stop –> Home. (4 mins)

11:15am: Home –> Dentist’s office for a cleaning (8 minutes)

12:00pm: Dentist –> Home (8 mins)

12:45pm: Home –> Work (35 mins. Traffic is slow today – for about a 1/3 of the commute on the beltway I’m creeping at 10-15 mph, but this is in the normal range of slow.)

11:45pm: Work –> Home (45 mins. Another bout of soul sucking midnight construction)

Total time in car = 1 hr 36 mins

WEDNESDAY (Free Day)
7:09am home —> piano lessons (7 mins). Drop the 14 year old for her lesson.

Then piano lessons —> get gas (3 mins). I always get gas on piano lessons day; it saves me the mental energy of having to think about when I’ll get gas during the week if/when my take gets low.

Then Gas —> breakfast sandwich place (5 mins) I bribe the 9 year old with breakfast sandwiches to practice piano. This is a little hole in the wall place near piano lessons that we’ve been going to for 6 years or so – it’s run by this Korean couple and they are super friendly to us.

Breakfast sandwiches —> back to piano lessons (5 mins). Drop the 9 year old for his lesson. Pick up the 14 year old. I usually then drive the 14 year old to school, but since she’s had her promotion ceremony she’s opting out of the last three days of school. So instead of driving her to school, we….

Piano lessons —> park (2 mins). I often take the 6 year old to this park while her siblings are in piano lessons.. We often only stay for 15 minutes (piano lessons are 30 mins), but I always figure 15 minutes of running around is better than sitting in the car and waiting. Plus there’s a pretty decent Little Free Library at this park.

8:13am: Park —> piano lessons, pick up the 9 year old, then —> home (10 mins)

9:00am: home –> parking lot at trail next to school, then walk up the trail to school for drop off. Stop and chat with friends along the way. (15 mins)

9:20am: School –> walk back to car –> drive back home (15 mins)

10:15am: home –> Hair salon for a much needed haircut. The 14 year old tags along – yay for mommy daughter time. (12 mins.)

11:15am: Hair salon –> Uniqlo (15 mins). It’s my day off and I knew it was going to be a big errand day. I need to refresh my show blacks (the black clothes I wear backstage) and wanted to get some of Uniqlo’s shirts with built in bras because my next show is in an outdoor venue and it’s going to be hot and I find the built in bras less constricting to wear. I also bought a pair of black nylon culottes that will be nice and airy backstage.

12:30p: Uniqlo –> Running Store (15 mins). The 14 year old needed new running shoes and this family owned store has been recommended to me as a local gem, so I decided to check them out. The service and fitting was top notch. No fancy machines to measure your gait like at other running stores – just careful attention being paid to how you walk and run in different shoes and lots of questions about habits.

1:30pm: Running Store –> Quest for boba (15 mins) The running store was around the corner from one of my favorite boba places, T-Baar. I like them because they also sell onigiri and I needed a snack. BUT T-Baar turned out to be closed until 3pm. Wump wump. So we ended up at Gong Cha, which is fine, but not as exciting. They did have mochi donuts at Gong Cha and we ended up buying 6 of them to bring home.

Then Gong cha –> Giant for groceries. (5 mins).

2:25pm: Giant –> Home (15 mins)

4:45pm: Home –> pool for Swim Meet (12 mins)

9:00pm Swim Meet over: Pool –> Home. (12 mins) Finally. Today was a lot of time in the car and not a lot of time at home, which is not ideal for a free day.

Total time in car = 2 hr, 43 mins

THURSDAY:
9:00am: Home –> parking lot on trail near school –> walk to school for the last drop off of the school year!! (15 mins)

9:20am: Run along trail. (19 mins + 30 min walk) I guess technically I’m not really going anywhere here, but I thought I’d throw it in anyway.

10:15am: Trail parking lot –> Whole Foods to pick up some groceries. (10 minutes – which is way longer than this needs to be for a 1 mile trip, but I took the route with a massive construction project going on.)

11:00am: Whole Foods –> walk to polling station for the last day of Early Voting.

11:20am: Walk back to car, then –> home. (12 mins)

1:40pm: home –> walk to bus stop to pick up the kids. The last day of school is always a half day. We are slightly late and the bus is waiting for us. I hate it when we make the bus driver wait. Then we walk home.

3:3pm: home –> work. (30 mins. Ugh. I guess 30 minutes isn’t bad, but that really slow stretch is really draining.) It’s opening night!!

12:00 midnight: Work –> Home (20 mins. yay!). There was an opening night party after the show so I stayed for that before driving home. There were tacos and cookies!

Time spent in car: 1 hr, 27 mins

FRIDAY: Another Free Day for Juneteenth.
12:00pm: Home –> walk to the newly opened Royal Farms. Buy fried chicken and slushies for lunch then –> walk home (45 mins). Royal Farms is a gas station/convenience store that apparently has amazing fried chicken. It was pretty tasty. A little soggy, but the flavor was good.

4:00pm: Home –> pool for swim team practice (12 mins)

7:00pm: Pool –> Trader Joe’s to pick up some groceries, then –> pick up pizza for dinner –> then Home (45 mins). The Husband drives all these stop. Whenever we go anywhere as a family, the Husband drives. When I offer to drive, he always says, “No!” with a tone of certain horror. The 14 year old’s practice wasn’t over yet, but our neighbor who is at our same pool gave her a ride home afterwards.

Time in car = 42 mins

SATURDAY:
8:45am: Home –> Pretzel pick up (12 mins). We were having a picnic with friends later on and I offered to bring the carbs because I love any excuse to order pretzels from DC Pretzel Company. The pretzel guy knows me by sight now and he threw in an additional pretzel – “One for the road.” I was delighted.

9:00am: Pretzel pick up –> Aldi’s to pick up some groceries, then — > home. (15)

9:45am: Home –> Voice lesson for the 14 year old. (23 mins)

10:15am: Voice lesson –> quick hike along nearby trail with the two younger kids while the oldest is in her lesson, then went back to the voice lesson to pick her up. (30 mins)

11:00am: Voice Lesson –> Park for picnic with my friends from college. (30 mins). We haven’t had a meet up since before COVID. That was the time when we were all excited because our 20th college reunion was coming up and we were going to go together. That was February 2020. Hah hah. I can’t believe it’s taken us six years to get together again!

2:30pm: Park picnic –> home. (15 mins)

5:00pm: Home –> Dumpling house (20 mins) to pick up dumplings for dinner.

5:25pm: Dumpling House –> Nature Center for Shakespeare in the Park performance, where we ate dumplings while enjoying a play. (15 mins).

Shakespeare in the park! Notice the ginger ale in the shoes…

Every summer, there’s a group that does free Shakespeare performances in local parks and nature centers. This year’s play was As You Like It, which is one of my favorite plays. (I tend to prefer Shakespeare’s comedies.) The set was simple and the costumes modern and the performances full of energy and there was a band providing live music to sometimes hilarious sometimes touching effect. (Like when they played “We are the Champions” during the wrestling scene.) I always love seeing how theatre can be done with a variety of budgets and every day things like camping lanterns can be used to an audience-gasping effect. I was disappointed that they cut Rosalind’s closing monologue, but I did appreciate that the performance was two hours including intermission.

9:00pm: Nature Center –> Home (25 mins)

Time in Car: 3 hr, 5 mins

SUNDAY
8:45am: Home –> Agility Center with the 6 year old for her Agility classes (12 mins)

10:05am: Agility Center –> Home (12 mins)

10:50am: Home –> Work – we had a matinee performance (25 mins – yay for light-ish weekend traffic)

6:15pm done with work: Work –> Home (20 mins)

7:30pm: Home –> walk around the neighborhood with the 14 year old. (1 hr.) I realized when I got home that I hadn’t had any outdoor time yet, and after sitting in the car I needed to get out and move, so I convinced the 14 year old to go on a walk with me. I love getting out on a summer evening when the sun is still up but no longer blazing and the air has shifted a little cooler and the fireflies are out.

Time in car = 1 hr 9 mins.

And that’s a week of where I went. A few observations:
1) Total Time in Car this week: 13 hrs and 9 mins, which is about 13% of my week. That seems like a lot. And I didn’t even do most of the driving to kids’ activities.

2) I didn’t use public transportation or my bike all week. My summer job is not close enough that I can do that. (My job for the rest of the year is reachable both on bike and Metro.)

3) I find that since my summer job is so far away, I spend a lot of time commuting and that really cuts into time I can spend doing other things. I really love my summer opera company, but I’m glad I don’t have to drive to Virginia all year round.

4) I do like the fact that a lot of things in my every day life is not more than 15 minutes away – it makes going to the dentist or taking kids to activities seem like an easier effort.

5) I like to bundle my errands so that I don’t have to leave my house more than I have to. I find coming home and leaving again saps my energy and momentum.

Grateful For:

– That the 14 year old went to a pretty diverse middle school. Never having seen all of the 14 year old’s class at once before, I was noticing during the promotion ceremony how diverse the student body was. It was really great to see. I mentioned this to the Husband and he said that earlier that week, our neighbor, on learning which high school the 14 year old chose to go to, seemed to indicate that she had made a poor choice. “There are so many Black and Hispanic kids at that school,” the neighbor said to the Husband. What the what????!!! I was FLOORED when the Husband told me this story. Diversity is a feature not a bug. I for one am glad that she’s going to a school where people don’t all look like her and she already had that experience in middle school.

-Cool summer days. It can get pretty hot and humid here in DC during the summer, but we’ve actually had really lovely days – 70/80 degrees, dry and sunny with a hint of breeze. I would be happy if this were summer all year round, but I know that we’re just at the beginning of summer and the heat and humidity is coming.

-My Show Opened and everything went smoothly.

-That I got to go on a walk with the 14 year old. Gotta savor those moments when I can.

-Sunlight late into the evening. Makes the days seem longer and more full of possibility.

-That my dental Hyegenist is gentle and no one guilts me about anything to do with my teeth.

Looking Forward To:
–Sail 250! It’s Fleet Week and we’re going to Baltimore to see the Tall Ships and maybe some of the airshow practice! (Spoiler – we did this today and it was a great time – more in next week’s recap!)

-Reading retreat with the Husband coming up. I’m researching bookstores and restaurants in Harrisburg, PA and getting excited about our visit. Let me know if you have any recs for Harrisburg, PA.

-We booked a place to stay in Niagara on the Lake for August! Because I took this additional gig, we had to shift our vacation a little bit; we were originally going to go to Chicago and Niagara Falls, but we’re just going to do three day in Niagara. I haven’t been to Niagara Falls since i was a child growing up in Ontario. Also let me know if you have any recs for Niagara on the Lake!

-Reading more of this book:

This was recommended to me by one of my interns this summer. We were having a conversation about how I noticed that a lot of the candidates I interviewed for our internship this year were very up front about their ADHD or other mental challenges and, to be quite honest, I just didn’t know what to do with that information or how to react. She is writing her Masters thesis on how to be more inclusive as a stage manager and said this book has been really helpful.

What We Ate:

Monday: Pasta Bake. There was leftover pasta in red sauce from Sunday night’s dinner, so I threw it in a pan with some sausage and cheese and made a pasta bake. Frugal dinner for the win.

Tuesday: Chicken Salad Sandwiches for the pool

Wednesday: Baked Chicken Drumsticks from NY Times Cooking, and steamed green beans. This baked chicken recipe was super easy and also easy to eat at the pool during the swim meet. I’m putting this recipe on repeat.

Thursday: Hot dogs and watermelon at the pool

Friday: Pizza (take out) and World Cup.

Saturday: Dumplings and Shakespeare

Sunday: Pasta and red sauce for the family. I had leftovers out of the fridge when I got home from work.

That’s the week! I have a few lighter weeks of work and I’m looking forward to spending time with my family this weekend. Hopefully the weather will hold!

If you have a spouse/partner, do you take turns driving, or is there always a default driver? Do you like to vote early, by mail, or in person on the day? Favorite Shakespeare play? Give me your best advice to pass along to the 14 year old for high school!

Weekly Recap + What We ate: Summer

Another tech week done! It’s had its challenges, but everyone has been really great to work with, which is really what makes or breaks a tech process for me.

This show was supposed to be my last show until the fall – the contract was supposed to finish the first week of July and I had been looking forward to having the rest of summer free until the kids go back to school. Well, I was offered a last minute gig – this same opera company lost an ASM for their August show and my boss asked if I wanted to step in. A bit of deja vu because this is also what happened last year – a last minute offer of a gig because someone needed to be replaced. The Husband and I discussed, we re-arranged our vacation plans (nothing had been booked yet), I told them I was unavailable for rehearsals during swim meets, and we’ve cobbled together a last minute plan for the kids. This was not the summer that I had envisioned in my head, but the directing team for the show are colleagues I really loved working with in the past, and there are lots of familiar faces I’m eager to collaborate with again, so I feel lucky that I was asked to fill in.

Anyhow, I’ve had to re-frame my summer a little. Instead of long days by the pool and adventures camping, I’ll be driving this same (miserable) commute and working rehearsals. The latter I’m looking forward to. The former, not so much. I think there is still some summer joy to be had in the free days that are in the schedule, six free days in all between now and mid August. After all, a lot of people work all summer and still find time to lean into the season, I should be able to as well. The kids each are doing a week of camp here and there, they also have half a week at a Taiwanese cultural camp, but otherwise are having a very unstructured summer. I did some brainstorming and here are some low key summer things I would love to gently aspire to – with the family and on my own:

-Taste test- I always find this is a fun thing to do during the summer. I’m thinking of taste test of chocolate covered donuts – Hostess, Tastykakes and Entenmann’s. Any other kinds out there?

-Make popsicles and lemonade and chai.

-Swimming laps at the pool.

-Run/bike with the kids. Last summer, the 9 year and I would go on run (me)/bikes (him) in the morning and it was lots of fun, so I’m hoping we also do some this summer. The 14 year old had decided that she wants to work on some conditioning, so we might go on some runs together too.

-Weekday movie matinee. I really want to see the Sheep Detectives – it’s based on Three Bags Full, which I read and found very amusing. Plus Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson!

-eating Dinner outside whenever possible.

-Enjoy summer produce and eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

-make a summer playlist. Or have the kids make me one.

-Find a linen or cotton poplin shirt dress in a bright colour or pattern.

-Enjoy ice cream. Maybe make a list of places near by to try.

-Go hiking somewhere either with a view or a waterfall.

-Paint my toenails. (And also get new sandals)

-declutter my bedroom black hole, the corner where things go to be forgotten.

-Go contra-dancing. (This might not happen – because they are on Thursday and Friday nights, but I’ll check the calendar.)

-Have a family movie marathon/ MarioKart competition/ Game night

-send the younger kids on one one with sibling dates with the 14 year old. I’m realizing there are only 4 more summers with the 14 year old and I want to make sure we make not just family memories, but sibling memories with her. I’ve told her that I will pay for any one on one sibling dates that she wants to have with the younger kids.

-Walk to the newly opened Royal Farms and get fried chicken and slushies.

Hopefully by writing this summer menu out, I won’t get into that Free Day Funk, where my brain is too fried to think of something to do that would help me lean into the summer.

Grateful For this week:
-Excuses to be outside. Headed into tech week, I tend to spend a lot of my time in a dark theatre. I’m so glad at work they have tables out on the back patio because it gives me an excuse to sit outside on my mealbreak.

-Air conditioning. The weather has turned to hot humid DC gross-ness. I’m glad for the AC.

-Getting home safely every night. Traffic is so unpredictable when I leave the theatre at 11:30pm – some nights it’s 20 minutes home, some nights they are doing construction and the beltway is down to a single lane and it takes an hour to get home. Plus it’s dark and I’m tired and my brain is a little fried. I’m always grateful when I pull up to our house safely.

-The Young Artists showing up. The company I’m now working for has a singer training program and for every show there are covers (basically understudies) for all the major parts. At some point, the covers all get to do their own run of the show in the rehearsal hall, with whatever props we can scavenge together – as in, “Here’s a bracelet I made for you out of tape.” The Cover Run is always such a great rehearsal to work because the feeling off goodwill and support in the room is palatable and a lot of singers show up to cheer the Young Artists on. The cover run last week was one of the best I’ve ever been to- the singers from the mainstage showed up and they even jumped in and did some of the chorus parts – everyone laughed and cheered and applauded loudly for the Young Artists. I love it when people show up to support each other.

-The Husband for getting the kids where they need to be while I’m working evenings.

-That it’s watermelon season. Is there a more perfect, easy, refreshing snack during the summer than cold watermelon?

-that the 14 year old survived middle school. The Friday before her Monday promotion ceremony, she asked if we could all drive her to school since it was her second to last day as a middle schooler. We all piled in the van and drove the mile down the road to wave her off. It was bittersweet. I feel so much gratitude that at a phase what are you doing downstairs of life as potential to be , she had a positive middle school experience.

Looking forward to:

-Opening my show and having time to take care of the rest of life. Commuting and 1+ hours a day really drains my time and my energy.

-Long holiday weekend. We were going to go away, but we’re all feeling a little drained, so we will stay home. Plus it’s Father’s day and I need to do something extra nice for the Husband since he’s been on solo parenting duty for a while. Though ironically I have to work on father’s day itself….

-Early voting. Get it done. Yay democracy.

-Peach Truck! We’ll be out of town the first time the Peach Truck comes to our area, so I’ve ordered a 25lb box of Peach Truck peaches for their second visit to the DC area.

-Listening to this book, my current audiobook for my commute. It’s read by Siobhan McSweeney, the actor who played Sister Michael in Derry Girls:

What We Ate:
-Monday: Dumplings and edamame – dinner at the pool between swim practices. I made everything before I went to work.

-Tuesday: Bacon and kale strata – dinner at the pool. I had some bacon and kale to use up. I prepped this casserole before I went to work and the Husband popped it in the oven after he was done work.

-Wednesday: Coconut Chicken Curry – from New York Times Cooking. I made a double batch of this curry a few weeks ago and froze half of it to be a quick meal when life got busy. Life has gotten busy. The Husband and kids ate this with paratha on the side. (I was at work and didn’t get home til after dinner. I think I had snack dinner)

-Thursday: Broccoli Spoon Salad from NY Times Cooking. Basically quinoa, broccoli, apples, cheddar cheese and pecans. It was tasty and sturdy, which made it a good pool dinner.

-Friday: Pizza take out.

– Saturday: The family had fried chicken take out from Fryer’s. I had leftover broccoli salad because I was still at work.

-Sunday: The family had pasta with red sauce and sausages. I worked late. I can’t remember what I had for dinner, though. Probably some kind of leftovers.

That’s the news for now as we go barreling into summer. Hope you have a nice long weekend, if it is such where you are. Or a nice weekend in general.

Where is the blackhole in your house? Favorite toe nail colours? Any gentle every day summer aspirations on your list?

Weekly recap + What We ate: Good-bye May, Hello June!

June got off to a great start. The first day of June was a free day, and I spent the day being productive and social. The day started with the usual morning lead up to the school bus. Then I went to meet a contractor at my parents’ rental house. The issue was resolved quickly so I went home and ran a bunch of internet errands – scheduling appointments, doing some research for things, etc. At 1pm, my friend picked me up and we went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 – we split a large pop corn, got cold bubbly sodas and settled in for an afternoon movie. Going to a weekday matinee seems so indulgent!

The movie was fun – probably not as strong as the first movie – the plot is a little predictable while also leaving large gaps; the love interest is a little weak, and also why does Andy even need a boyfriend? – but clearly this new effort is meant to be a nostalgia trip and I was nostalgic and very entertained. There was a lot I liked about the movie – The clothes! The spot the celebrity game! Kenneth Branagh playing a supportive Husband – who plays the violin! Anne Hathaway’s doe eyes, big smile, and “every girl” appeal! Stanley Tucci gliding through the movie with deft ease! Meryl Streep, acting up a storm and having the ability to pierce you to your core without even looking up. I don’t go to see movies in the theatre very often, maybe twice a year – but when I do, I think an empty theatre and a big bag of popcorn on a weekday afternoon is my preferred way to do it.

After the movie, I came home, made dinner then took the kids to the pool for swim team practice. The 6 year old really wanted to go into the pool, so I had to go in as well since she’s not old enough or a strong enough swimmer to be in the pool by herself. The pool was very cold, but I got used to it and had a good time. Then after the younger kids went home, I stayed on to wait for the 14 year old who swims in the later practice, and I swam some laps while I waited, my first lap swim of the summer. It was really tough going, and I felt really out of shape, but it felt good to move through the water.

So all in all, a very nice free day, and a great way to start the new month. You know how they say, “Start as you mean to carry on. – well I hope the day of errands, exercising, friend time, family time, and entertainment will prove to be the framework for the month and not just a one time thing.

Looking back on May …

May Highlights:

-Taking the show we were working on to Baltimore and being away from home for three nights. Getting to explore a new city – farmer’s markets, restaurants, bakeries – stay in a quirky hotel – flamingos EVERYWHERE! – and work in a new to me theatre with familiar to me crew.

-The 14 year old’s Confirmation. It’s been a lot of classes and extra work, but she did it. Grateful for our neighbor who was her sponsor and who was so supportive and helpful.

-A Gala concert at work. This one night only concert was wild and definitely out of my comfort zone, but it happened and I learned a lot about how events are planned and executed. And I got to meet the man who wrote Wicked and Pippin and Rags, an underappreciated musical with a great score.

-The 14 year old starring in her middle school musical. I was so happy to see her up on stage doing her thing, a thing that had nothing to do with me.
Side sentimental note: I’m having more and more moments when I see my oldest and I’m realizing what an amazing fully formed human being she is becoming. She starts high school in the fall and I’m ready/ not ready for the next four years to fly by. It’s kind of a weird temporal time for me to be in where one child’s time with us feels so brief and short while the little kids feel as if they will never grow up – it’s as if they are progressing on different timelines simultaneously. I don’t think I’m explaining it very well; I know that they’re all on their own journey; it just feels that the two little kids are moving through molasses and the older kid is on a zipline, all at the same time.

-Two voice recitals that I did doing supertitles for. One of them was the retirement recital of a singer that I first met when he sang Stravinsky with my college choir. It was really great to get to work on his recital, such a familiar colleague. On the other end of the spectrum, was a singer whom I met a few years ago when he was just out of Julliard and it’s been so lovely to see how he’s grown each time we worked together. I really love how in my job I don’t have to work with the same people all the time, but they come in and out of my life, so there are constantly happy reunions.

-Third grade recorder concert, the highlight of which was their rendition of Eye of the Tiger. God Bless elementary school music teachers.

-Finished hiring stage management staff for next season at work.

-My parents here for a visit and to see the 14 year old’s show.

-Happy Hour with my Bus Stop Mom friends where we stumbled into Trivia Night. Our team name was Bus Stop Divas. We didn’t come in last. We came in second last. But at least now I know what an obelus is and where Cesar Salad was invented.

-The Husband – wisely – going against my wishes and signing us up for Netflix. Watching Derry Girls with him and laughing so hard together.

-Memorial Day camping in the drizzle with good friends and sleeping in a hammock.

-Lunch with a friend I met at the 6 year old’s mom group. She lives near my summer gig so it’s nice to catch up when I’m there.

-Seeing the 20 minute opera festival at work. It was amazing how the rehearsal room was transformed into a performance space. Getting to eat the leftover McDonald props afterwards.

-Starting my summer gig. Working with many familiar faces and some great new colleagues. I haven’t worked with the director in maybe 15 years, and it was such a pleasant surprise to see him again. The pizza welcome lunch the company hosted. Working with young singers who are so enthusiastic and eager to do well.

-Trying something new for how I prep my scores for a show. for this show, I’m using an electronic score. Rather than having a paper score, I downloaded the app Newzik, which lets me upload scores and mark them up. It’s been really fun to play with how to mark up my score with all the different features and colours that Newzik has. Also it’s so much easier than carrying a 400 page score around with me when I’m running a show. And I don’t have to worry about 3M discontinuing my favorite colour of Post-Its. I’m kind of loving it.

-Evenings at home. My summer job doesn’t rehearse at night so I’ve been home by 7:30 or 8:00pm every night. Not early enough to go to the pool with the family, but early enough to help put the younger kids to bed and them catch up with the 14 year old and Husband.

May Lowlights
-Being so very busy. I’m happy for the work, but all through May, I felt like all I did was go to work then come home and sleep, get up, get the kids to the bus, then back to work. I think I had one day off the whole month.

-The commute to my summer job is Soul Sucking. Without traffic it takes twenty minutes to get to/from work. With traffic it can take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. It is so exhausting to sit in a hot car in bumper to bumper traffic.

-Some issues at the rental properties – not bloggable and thankfully all surmountable, but takes extra time and effort to handle – especially on the Husband’s part.

Quote(s) of the Month:

“Booked and blessed.”
If I had a chapter title for May, this would be it. I had an actor say this too me when he asked if I would with with their show until closing and I said I was leaving the show early because I had another gig. Which is when he said, “Booked and blessed!” I think it’s a common saying in the industry; I like that it reminds me to be grateful for every opportunity that comes my way because freelancing is a tough life.

“Sounds like you don’t have enough surmountable problems.”
from August in the Forest by Ben Shattuck.
This quote is from a short story I read last month, said by one character to her ex-boyfriend who is floundering a little to find his way in life. I really like the reminder that most problems in life are indeed surmountable, and that having surmountable problems is actually a good place to be in life as opposed to having insurmountable ones.

How I did on my various goals… hmmmm not good. Both didn’t spend time on a lot of these goals, but also, I didn’t write any of it down in my journal.
Creativity:
-Painted no pictures. (8/26 pictures for the year, still)
-wrote 2 haikus (15/52 haiku for the year… need to do some catching up on this.)
-0 hikes. (1/12 so far this year – not doing so well on this goal)

Consumption:
– 3 live performances – I saw West Side Story and our twenty minute opera festival at work – as an audience member, not as a person working on the show. And then we say the middle school musical. (I’m not counting the 3rd grad recorder concert here – that seems like not really the spirit of this category.)
-0 Museums. (3/12 for the year so far. Though we got free passes for the Phillips collection at a community event, so maybe that will happen in June.)

Health – okay this wasn’t a great month for tracking my health aspirations…
-? sessions of strength training. (Goal was 8/ month, but I did poorly at tracking things in May.)
-Daily yoga – 21/31 days tracked. This number might actually be higher – see above about not tracking things.
-0? vegan dinners. We ate a lot of chicken in May. I didn’t even track most dinners.
-0 run. (Exercise was not a strong suit of mine in May.)

Looking Forward to in June:
-Tech/Opening/Closing of my current show. Tech starts this week!

-Piano and voice recitals for the kids (This already happened – bravo tutti!)

-Getting my hair cut – I last got it cut when we were in Taiwan, so it’s been long overdue.

-Dentist appointments for the kids. Also long overdue.

-Going to Baltimore and seeing the Tall Ships. To celebrate America’s 250th, a bunch of countries are sending tall ships to join the American fleet that usually makes the rounds this time of year. They are stopping in various cities, with Baltimore being one of theme.

-Visit from my mother, my brother, and my neice.

-Last day of school.

-Time at the pool. Swim meets start up next week.

-Meeting up with some friends from college. The last time we got together it was February 2020. We joked that I never went to college reunions and they said, “Well this is the year that you’re going!” And then COVID. I don’t know why it’s taken six years for us to get together again….

-8th Grade Promotion ceremony for the 14 year old. (I’m missing half a tech rehearsal so attend this. There was a time when it was unthinkable for me to miss a tech rehearsal, but now – perhaps it’s my age or the post-COVID age that we are in – I’m finding that it’s okay to make the ask to miss rehearsals to attend these important things. I don’t want to miss these things if I don’t have to.)

Grateful For Lately:

-Produce box from our friend who was out of town. He gave us his CSA share and we’ve eaten almost all of it except for the kohlrabi and the beets. I was planning on trying my hand at pickled beets. If anyone has any ideas for kohlrabi, I’d love to hear!

-GPS for helping me avoid the worst of the traffic.

-A few mornings where we didn’t start rehearsal until after noon – it’s nice to have the morning off to putter and take care of some life things.

-Our contractor who can fix all sorts of problems in the most straight forward way.

-Chairs. So the journal app on my phone sends me prompts every day and one day, the prompt was “What are you grateful for in this moment.” I had just had a long day at work and rehearsal was over and I was finally able to sit down, and the first thing that popped into my head was – Chairs. I’m so grateful to have a chair to sit in at the end of a long day. What a great invention chairs are.

What We Ate – we’re eating a lot of dinners at the pool because of swim practice these next few weeks, which means meals that I can put together in the mornings that will travel well and that we can eat poolside, so not too messy.

Monday: Teriyaki Tofu and Broccoli from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for everyone. Vegan. I doubled the Teriyaki recipe and also made some teriyaki chicken for later in the week.

Tuesday: Chicken Salad Sandwiches, smoothies, and cut up apples. Eaten at the pool. I made lunch boxes for everyone in advance.

Wednesday: Roasted Salmon and Potatoes and green beans. I prepped this before I went to work and the 14 year old cooked the salmon and potatoes and steamed the green beans when she got home. I used the teriyaki sauce from Monday on the Salmon and it was tasty.

Thursday: Sesame noodles w/ the teriyaki chicken from Monday night. Watermelon. Dinner at the pool, I prepped this in advance.

Friday: Pizza and K-Pop Demon Hunters

Saturday: I think the family had pizza and played Dungeons and Dragons at a friends house. I worked late and then ate out of the fridge when I got home.

Sunday: Sticky Rice Cakes with Sausage and Greens from NY Times Cooking. We cooked this to use up the tatsoi and bok choi and onions from my friend’s CSA box as well as some sausage we had leftover. It was a big hit with the family. The sauce is literally a cup of ketchup + miso + sesame oil. The adults added chili crisp to their servings. Very tasty.

Anyhow, that’s the news from here. It feels like we’re fully into summer now! Just a few more days left of school. Our summer is currently a little unplanned, so I need to put some thought into it. I was originally going to have the summer off, but I was offered a last minute job so I’m not going to be home with the kids as much as I had originally planned. Booked and Blessed, I guess, but I’m mourning my original summer vision of lazy days at the pool. We’ll see what happens.

Hope June has been off to a sunny start for you.