Uncategorized – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Mundane things – small kitchen appliances in my life

So the other day at lunch, my co-worker made a comment about how I was eating my meatballs cold.

“I could never eat meatballs cold,” he said to me.

“Well, we don’t have a microwave, so I eat a lot of food cold,” I said.

“YOU DON’T HAVE A MICROWAVE???? WHY DON’T YOU HAVE A MICROWAVE???””

Maybe it’s just here in America, but I get that reaction a lot when I mention that we don’t have a microwave. But the truth of the matter is that the microwave did not convey with our current house and our previous microwave was a built in so we couldn’t bring it with us. And when we got to our new house, once we put the appliances out on the counter, there was no room for a microwave.

What is taking up an entire counter, you ask? Well, I thought maybe it was time for one of those posts about the mundane things in my life – namely small kitchen appliances. So here are the small kitchen appliaancea taking up space where we could have a microwave:

We call this “appliance row” at our house.

From Right to Left:

Vita Mix Blender – This was a present from my father who found it at Costco and decided we needed it. I scoffed at first – who needs a fancy blender??? The answer is I do. I need a fancy blender. Okay, I don’t need a fancy blender, but I do love it. We use it maybe once or twice a week, more often in the summer because we make a lot of smoothies. I use it to make Brazilian cheesy bread. I use to to blend the eggs when I make pancakes. I use it to make sauces. It’s one of those things where it would be a pain to haul out every time I needed it, so it just lives on the counter.

Kitchen Aid Stand mixer – I bought this as a present for the Husband for Christmas one year. But really, it was a present for me um… the family. It is a refurbished one so was less expensive than it could have been. This is also one of those things I didn’t think I wanted until we got one and wow – we can make cookies even if we forget to take the butter out of the fridge to soften.

InstantPot – another one of those things that I didn’t think I wanted until the Husband got me one for Christmas. Okay, here’s what I think of the InstantPot – the food does not taste better than with other methods, and it tends to produce mushy results if you don’t time things right. BUT… I love that it has a timer function so I can prep things in the morning and have the IP start cooking it in time for people to come home. I love that I set it and walk away. I love that I can use it to cook food from frozen for when I forget to defrost meat (see: no microwave above). I love that I can cook pasta, meatballs, and noodles all at the same time. So I love it for convienience over quality of food. All that aside, however, what I use it for the most is to make boiled eggs, 12 at a time. Two minutes on low pressure with quick release and I get a lovely jammy egg.

Rice cooker: This is actually my mother’s and only a recent addition to my counter. I have gotten so much slack in the past from other Taiwanese people when they learn I don’t have a rice cooker. They look at me with a mixure of horror and pity. I had always used my IP to cook rice if it was brown and stove top if it was white rice. But one day, I was making something in the morning in the IP and wanted to have rice to go with it, so I used the rice cooker and it was magical – fluffy rice with minimal effort and checking from me. (Side note – when I was a child, one of my jobs was to make the rice. My mother would call when she was on her way home from work and I would put the rice and water into the rice cooker and flick the button.) When my mom wants her rice cooker back, I’ll give it back… I’m on the fence as to whether or not to get my own, though. Part of me realizes that I’ve gotten along just fine without one but another part of me recognizes the ease with which it makes rice.

Toaster Oven: In the great Toaster Oven vs. Toaster debate, I am Team Toaster Oven. This might be our most used appliance. We use it for, obviously, toast, and also to reheat things and to roast small quantities of things.

Coffee maker: Mocca Master – some kind of fancy Dutch drip coffee maker purchased by my coffee snob Husband. Apparently it regulates how the water is dripped in for optimal taste. I don’t dink coffee, so I couldn’t say.

Coffee grinder: Another meticulously researched purchase for the Husband’s coffee habit.

Waffle maker: We should use this more than we do for the amount of real estate it takes up on our counter, but it’s so hard to store somewhere else.

Edited to add: The ktichen scale! How could I forget the kitchen scale. I prefer baking by weights and the Husband weighs his coffee beans in the morning.

Small kitchen appliances that are not on appliance row:

Electric can opener – This is a vintage item that came to us after my in-laws passed away. An avocado green relic of another era, the can opener has earned its place on our counter through nostalgia and functionality.

Hot water boiler: Maybe my favorite of all our small kitchen appliances. Hot water instantly, at the temperature I set. We don’t just use it for tea, we also use it to fill pots with hot water so that they boil faster when we are making pasta or steaming vegetables, or really anything that requires boiling a pot of water on the stove. The kids use this to make ramen, which is nice way for them to independently feed themselves. It’s probably my favorite purchase of the year so far.

Soda Stream – Is this an appliance if it doesn’t require electricity? My brother bought this for us a few years ago when he came to visit. He drinks a lot of fizzy water and didn’t want us to keep buying it for him, so he bought us this. It gets more use in summer than in winter tbh. I like that I can make the water as fizzy as I like. Lately, though, I’ve been buying canned seltzer because I enjoy the different flavors.

Crock pot – Again this is my mother’s. We used to have one and then I lent it to an intern and never got it back and I felt bad asking for it back because they make so little money. So we use my mother’s when we need it. Which isn’t very often, maybe once every two or three months or so. I prefer my IP to my Crockpot because the IP has a timer function and the crock pot doesn’t. Also I’ve always felt like the taste of food I make in the crockpot tastes somehow chemically. I think I’m in the minority on this, though. (No picture of it because, to be honest, I can’t remember where it is.)

Immersion blender (middle left shelf): This was a hand me down from my Sister In Law, when the oldest was a baby, which I guess makes this appliance almost 15 years old. She had given me the immersion blender because I was in my baby food making phase. I used this to puree a lot of food for my kids when they were babies. In addition to the blender stick, it also has a whisk, which is very useful for making whipped cream. I prefer the immersion blender to the Vitamix when making pureed soups – less chance for hot soup splash accidents.

Food Processor (bottom shelf, right hand side): This is another vintage machine. I’m not even sure of it’s origins, only that I “borrowed” it from my mother when I moved out of the house in my twenties. It has barely a 2 cup capacity, which makes it perfect for making sauces and such. I also love it for shredding parmesan cheese. From time to time I think I should upgrade and get a bigger capacity food processor, but this one is probably thirty years old and still going strong, so I don’t see the point in replacing it.

Hand mixer (you can’t see it, but it’s behind the cheese grater): This was a wedding present from my former boss. I had said something about having bought a hand mixer and it was very heavy. She got me this one with the note, “I hope this is lighter than the other one.” Since we got the stand mixer, I don’t use this hand mixer that often, but I don’t want to get rid of it.

Small Coffee grinder (next to the food processor) – This was our old coffee bean grinder before we upgraded to the above. I use it to grind spices. It smells like cloves.

Grateful for this week:
-Getting to spend time with friends. My current rehearsal schedule and commute makes it hard to do anything outside of work/ morning prep/ swim team stuff- all my free days are mid week. But I didn’t have to be in to work until 6pm last Sunday, so I was able to go over with the family to a friend’s house for a little bit and it was really nice to hang out and be social.

-The French bookstore near us. I wanted to get the kids something to read in French so that they didn’t completely slide on their French skills this summer (they are in a French immersion program at school). I had heard about this bookstore – Bonjour Books – but never visited and this was the perfect opportunity. The store was an absolute gem – a solid well-curated selection of books in French (for grown ups and kids), a used book section, and best of all, a charming and helpful owner who spoke French to my kids and encouraged them to find something that interested them. I spent a lot of money here, but I have no regrets and will come and spend more. Also really grateful for the other customer at check out who gently prompted the 9 year old in French to ask for Tin Tin books.

-Living near a trail so that it’s possible to squeeze in a run in the 45 minutes between getting home from work and having to leave the house for something else. After sitting in the car for the 40 minutes it took to get home, I really needed to move a little before getting in the car again. So grateful that living near a trail (with lots of shade!) made it easy to slip on my running clothes and go for a run.

-Three cooler swim meets. Swim meets in the summer heat can be brutal, and I’m glad the three meets lasts week featured cloudy skies. (I’m looking in my list of gratitudes in my journal and I literally wrote “cloudy meet” three times in six day.

-That my big boss brought in donuts for the first day of rehearsal. I love donuts.

-That summer swim team season doesn’t last forever. As much as I love the kids participating in summer swim team, it is a lot of work and logistics and I’m glad it’s almost over and that it doesn’t go all summer. We have one more meet and the awards night left – I was going over the rest of the schedule with the Husband and he said, “You mean we’ve almost made it through swim season this year?”

-That it’s peach season. Is there anything more delicious than a ripe summer peach?

-Period products in the bathroom at work. Am I the only one who goes to the bathroom to change my pad and then forgets to bring the pad? I’m grateful our work keeps a stock of period products out in the open.

Looking forward to:

-The 14 year old volunteered to sing the national anthem at the next swim meet. I’m really proud of her for stepping up and asking for the opportunity and I’m looking forward to hearing her sing.

-Going to the theatre with the Husband. One of my favorite local theatre troupes has a show this month and I want to get tickets – their shows are always such a blend of whimsy and emotionally resonance. I’m writing this wish here so that it will be true.

-Happy Hour with my school bus mom friends next week.

-Listening to more of this audiobook – it might be a bit of a heavy listen for my commute, but after seeing the Enola Gay at the Air and Space Museum, I find myself wanting to learn more about Nagasaki and Hiroshima:

The Devil Reached for the Sky: An oral history of the making and unleashing of the atomic bomb, by Garrett M. Graff

What we ate:

Monday: Sandwiches from the Italian Deli near the Husband’s work – Pool Dinner. We had gotten back from our trip the night before and no one had time to go to the grocery store yet.

Tuesday: Dumplings, edamame, and sour cream and onion chips – eaten at the pool

Wednesday: Sesame noodles and watermelon. Pool dinner. My Go To recipe for sesame noodles from the New York Times Cooking site.

Thursday: Dan Dan Noodles with eggplant from New York Times cooking. This was very tasty. At first I was worried about having two noodle dishes in a row but you know what? We love noodles, and could eat them every day.

Friday: Snack dinner – charcuterie, cheese, crackers, fruit. Another of those hastily put together dinners for the pool. After swim practice, we went to a friend’s house to make s’mores on the fire pit where one of the kids introduced me to the amazing ness of a layer of peanut butter on the graham cracker before adding the marshmallow off the stick. Mind blown. It was delicious. I don’t always care for Hershey’s chocolate so I’m glad I found an alternative for my S’mores.

Saturday: Pizza (take-out) and family World Cup watching. I was at work, so I had leftovers for dinner.

Sunday: We had dinner at our friend’s house. They grilled chicken kabob. I had to leave for work before dinner was ready, so I basically snacked all afternoon. Before I left I did grab a pita and smear it with whipped feta. It was delicious.

Welp, another weekend is upon us. I have to work both days. The Husband’s cousin is coming for a visit, and there are Swim Team Divisionals on Sunday. Oh and there’s a little soccer game being played on Sunday too. The air was not great today – swim practice was cancelled. Fingers crossed that the air will be better by Sunday for Divisionals. I feel really awful for people who are in the thick of fire and smoke. There was a thick haze over everything as I drove too and from work and we got the masks out from COVID times for when we had to be outside going to and from the car. So interesting how easily the kids just put them on. I hope everyone is staying safe, however possible.

Tell me about your favorite small kitchen appliance!

Delightful things lately

I have a handful of half written posts sitting in my drafts folders – I just never seem to be able to finish a post these days. Thoughts, updates, highs, and lows of life lately. But of course life lately is Maycember in full force. There are performances, lessons, soccer games, recitals, and visits from family to navigate. There are times of change and big emotions to wade through. I have perhaps bitten off a little more than I can chew work-wise. Some projects I really love. Some projects that terrify me and fill me with self doubt. But work is work and I do feel lucky to get to do the work that I do.

So in lieu of a proper chatty post, here are a few things that have delighted me lately (h/t to Daria who has been blogging about delighta all this year.):

-A crisp clear sunny morning after a damp grey day.

-The bee keeping family who sell honey on their driveway. The linden variety tastes like lychee!

-a middle school musical with my kid in the lead. So very very very very proud of her.

-a farmer’s market with the first strawberries of summer.

-Diggers out in front of our house, and the kids who still get excited by heavy machinery.

-The Husband’s garden projects – I don’t garden myself, so I’m so excited to see what he has planned for this year – I hear there will be some vegetables.

-my new tablet pencil that looks like a pencil. Makes me happy every time I use it.

-waking up ten minutes early to read in bed.

-The dogs that I meet on my walk around the neighborhood. I don’t ever want to have a dog myself, but I get such joy from seeing them. Thank you dog owners!

-These flamingo nightstands at the hotel in Baltimore I was staying at:

-this sign, seen at a pizzeria in Baltimore:

in case you can’t read it, it says: “Ate Salad for dinner! Mostly croutons and tomatoes. Really one big round crouton covered with tomato sauce and cheese. Fin. It was pizza. I ate pizza.”

-The pianist who, despite having two kids and a long commute, manages to bake containers and containers of cookies to bring to rehearsal. And then the actor who went halvsies with me so we didn’t each have to choose just one.

On the left- chocolate chip. One the right – pignoli almond.

-My parents, here for a visit, playing chess with the 6 year old even though neither know what they are doing. Then they played Monopoly with the 6 and 9 year old and the two kids played in French.

-inadvertently dressing to match my 9 year old:

-taking the metro to work and finishing my novel on the way back and forth to work.

-The retirement recital of a colleague who has been around forever (he was a guest artist with my college choir many years ago), yet remains so youthful that I can’t believe he is retiring. Being able to create supertitles for his recital that gave him exactly what he wanted.

-Musical theatre triple threats who dance, sing, and act with such intensity and grace. There are moments in rehearsal when I’ve almost wept for the beauty that is seven bodies moving in unison yet each person an individual, reaching reaching and then coming back to earth.

What delightful things have been in your life lately?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye March, Hello April!

Last week was spring break – we stayed home and had a relaxing staycation kind of week. Monday I took the kids down to the main library in downtown DC, and we also went to see some cherry blossoms. Other than that – we had some nice bike rides and playground time. Baking. A family trip to Costco. Hair cuts and dress shopping. Library visits and ice skating. It was nice to be home and living life at a relaxed pace.

The weekend was also pretty low key. On Saturday I dopped the 6 year old at an Easter Egg Hunt play date and went to get my emissions tested. The emissions didn’t take as long as I expected, so I stopped at Panera for my free Slip Club beverage and a BLT since I hadn’t had breakfast. Then in the afternoon, the Husband and the two little kids and I went on a nice long bike ride. In the evening, we watched the Men’s Final Four Basketball games. After the 6 and 9 year old went to bed, it was time to play Easter Bunny. The 14 year old was still up, and the Husband turned to her, dead serious, and said, “I have something to tell you. “

She looked at him expectantly.

“The Easter Bunny,” he said, “Isn’t real.”

I howled with laughter. The 14 year old helped us stuff eggs and then she actually went and hid all the eggs for us while the Husband and I finished watching the game.

Sunday, we went to 8am Easter Mass, which at our church is an English/ Bangla service. Reasons I really enjoy going to the English/Bangla mass:
-The rainbow of saris and kurtas that people wear are so fun to see.
-The homily is given in both languages, so it tends to be shorter.
-The music is provided by Bengali musicians and it is always upbeat and varied.

After Mass we went to breakfast at First Watch. We traditionally would go to IHOP for Easter breakfast, but the last couple of years, IHOP has always been so crowded so we decided to try something new. First Watch was for sure less crowded and the food was, in my opinion, better. The restaurant was having an Easter Egg hunt which was fun for the kids too. After breakfast we went home, had a nap. The kids hunted for Easter eggs. I made some lemonade and chocolate pudding for dinner, then we watched the Women’s NCAA Basketball final game while the kids folded laundry. The game was kind of a rout, with UCLA winning by 30 points.

For dinner we had burgers, tater tots, green beans, and lemonade. After dinner we went for a family walk – a rare thing these days to get all five of us to go for a walk together. The summer sunset sky was gorgeous! When we came home we had the chocolate pudding for dessert before sending the kids to bed. It didn’t feel like a fancy holiday weekend, but I think it was full of family, and good food, and what more could one want?

And now the calendar has turned to another month. April! Which means that 2026 is one quarter over. Here’s a look back at March:

March Highlights:
-Tech/Opening/Closing of a show. The Show certainly had it’s challenges, but I had such a good time with my co-workers.

-Family trip to the theatre to see The Sea Beyond the Ocean. Such a beautiful play.

-Supertitle recital gig of a lovely recital that featured Vaughn Williams’ Songs of Travel, one of my favorite song cycles.

-Running supertitles for another opera. I really like running supertitles – I get to lock into the music, but also I don’t have to talk to anyone else so I can just focus on one thing.

-Sunshine and warmer weather.

-It was a pretty negligent month for exercise, but I did go on my first run since November, and I did go to the fitness room at the rec center once.

-My friend L coming over to do laundry and getting to hang out with her late one evening.

-KPop Demon Hunters winning two Oscars, and seeing Golden performed on the telecast.

-My friend A coming home from their posting abroad. I mean not the reason they were sent home (they were posted in the Middle East), but the fact that I got to see her four months earlier than I was expecting.

-Going to the 9 year old’s Geobowl and the 14 year old’s Science Fair.

-Visiting the Textile Museum. Who knew horse blankets were so nuanced!

-Getting our tax information to our Tax Guy just in time.

-March Madness.

-Favorite meal cooked at home: Coconut Chicken Curry from New York Times Cooking.

-Cherry Blossoms. I never get tired of their fluffy delicate beauty.

Also – I snapped this picture while sitting in the shadow of the Washington Monument. I’m feeling a little down about the state of American politics, but I still feel inspired and hopeful by the symbols of our country, such as the American Flag and the Washington monument.

March Lowlights:
-Being sick. I was barely hanging on for a week mid-March. Turns out it was flu. I had to cancel so many plans that I had been looking forward to.
-News on the international front.
-News on the arts front at home. My heart aches for so many of my colleagues and former colleagues here in DC.
-A really hard tech process for the show I did. Everything was fine in the end, but there were definitely times when I thought I was just plain bad at my job.
-The back and forth as to the last day of school. This isn’t really a lowlight, but more like an ridiculous frustration. As the snow days piled up, the school district kept extending the school year, day by day until the last day, which was originally June 18th was pushed all the way to June 25th. I was glad I hadn’t signed the kids up for camp that week. But then…. then then… the week before spring break, the school district announced that they had gotten a special dispensation from the State to have a reduced number of teaching days and the last day of school would go back to being June 18th after all. ARUGH!!!! You know – I am find with whatever they decide to do, but to offer one thing and then change it back is… so annoying. I’m sure the school district knows how annoying this is.

How did I do on some of my 2026 Goals?
-Creativity – I only painted one picture; I wrote 3 haikus; I played piano several times – I’m trying to embrace the five minute piano noodle as something to do when I’m between tasks. So could do better on this front. But then I was sick for a week…

The one picture I painted all month. I guess technically it’s two. This was the leaf painting assignment from 30 Days of Watercolour.

-Finished one crossword puzzle. We didn’t renew our Washington Post Sunday paper til half way through the month, but it is now renewed so I can get back to doing my weekly puzzle.

-Museums = 1 (total so far this year, 4/10). Hikes= 0 (Not doing so well on the hiking goal)

-Vegan dinners = 3 (the goal is 5/month) I have to admit, vegan dinners are hard when I’m working in the evenings and am not home to cook.

-Excercise: not great. Strength training = 3x (goal was 8x/ month). Yoga daily = I missed two days when I was sick and 1 day when I just forgot. I did go running 4 times, once for only 10 minutes, but I’m still counting that.

-Family Goals: Game Night = 1 (Parcheesi; it was disastrous. Wait, I think there was a MarioKart night as well); Date Night = 0 (still); Call my parents once a week – I did horribly on this one; I think I called them once all month.

-Time outside: I tracked 14 hours, but it might have been more. I fell off the tracking wagon the days before and after I was sick.

Quote of the Month:
“I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.” from The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.

Looking Forward to (the April edition):
– Contra dancing. We didn’t get to last month because of sickness in our household, so I’m hoping we’ll get to go this month.

-My mother’s coming to visit.

-Dinners and hang outs with various friends and families we know. The social calendar is a little full.

-An order from Jet Pens. As a gift to myself for getting through tech week (twice in one month!) and the flu, I ordered myself some things from JetPens – some monthly tabs so I can tab my planners, a new Preppy Fountain Pen, some new .25 point pens, and a book clip so I can clip my book open when I read while eating.

-Alisdair Fraser and Natalie Haas. I’ve been a fan of this fiddle and cello duo since their debut album in 2004 so I was super excited to see they are coming to play in our area. I very rarely go to live music concerts – usually if I’m going it live performance it’s opera or theatre – but especially these days, I feel like supporting live performance is important.

– Starting rehearsals for a new show and working with some of my favorite colleagues. (Okay, truth – most of my colleagues are my favorite colleagues. Now that I get to have a say in hiring stage managers, I don’t hire people I don’t want to work with… it’s a perk.)

– Reading in bed! I ordered a bedside lamp and it arrived!

Grateful for this week:
-Libraries. Particularly libraries that don’t have computers in their Children’s Section, thereby forcing my kids to actually look at books.

-Cadbury Mini Eggs. My favorite holiday candy. I got the big bag from Costco this year. Actually I got two. Last year I thought I didn’t need the big Costco bag of mini eggs so I didn’t buy them, and I regretted it ever since.

-A later piano lesson. The kids’ piano lessons are usually at 7:15am, but this week because it was Spring Break, their teacher was able to move the lesson to 8:00am and it was nice to stay home for that extra 45 minutes and have a leisurely morning.

-Bike trails and closed parkways. On the weekends, the parkway near us is closed to cars, giving us an endless length of road on which to ride our bikes.

-Spring Break and bonus time with my kids. Sure they periodically fought like tom cats, but overall I had a really great time hanging out with my kids this week. I think key to my great time was the fact that they play together pretty well, so a) I didn’t have to referee many arguments, and b) I could spend lots of time by myself without having to amuse them.

-Past me for making vanilla. Last year around this time, I had been given a mini bottle of vodka that I was never going to drink. So I tucked an vanilla bean inside to make vanilla. I had forgotten about it until this week, when I was making banana cake (this recipe – it’s really tender and moist) and realized we were out of vanilla. Panic! But then, I remembered that little bottle on our alcohol shelf. Past me to the rescue!

What We Ate:
Monday: Garlic-y Chicken with Lemon Anchovy Sauce a Melissa Clark recipe from NY Times Cooking. Eaten with rice and steamed broccoli on the side. I was looking to use up some chicken thighs I had in the fridge. This was really tasty.

Tuesday: Tacos from the taco place next to the barber’s. We had gone for haircuts for the kids and decided to grab dinner out before running some other errands this night.

Wednesday: Roasted Salmon and Potatoes with bagged salad. The 14 year old made dinner and it was super tasty.

Thursday: Kabocha Squash Japanese Curry from Hetty Lui McKinnon, and Pan Fried Tofu. I had picked up a Kabocha squash from the Farmer’s market and was looking for a way to cook it. I really loved this flavorful curry. I didn’t have Japanese curry, but Indian curry powder worked just fine. I think I’ve cracked the code on really delicious crispy fried tofu. This is my method:
-Press and drain tofu for at least 20 minutes. (I wrap it in a kitchen towel and then put my Dutch oven on it. Sometimes I start it in the morning so that it’s nice and dry by the time I get home after work.)
-Cut tofu into 1 inch cubes.
-Douse with soy sauce and then let it sit for at least 10 minutes to marinate.
-Toss in 1/4 cup of cornstarch, making sure all sides of tofu are coated.
-Heat about a 1/4″ of oil in a large skillet.
-When the oil is hot, add the tofu. Let it cook untouched for 3-4 minutes, until a nice crust forms. Then flip and cook for another 3-4 minutes on the other side.
-When nice and golden/ crispy on at least two sides, take out and drain on a paper towel.
The excessive amount of cornstarch seems to be ky.

Friday: Take out from local fish restaurant, because it was Friday in Lent. And for movie night: A Nice Indian Boy. I was looking for a rom com to watch since it was my turn to pick the movie, and came across this title from last year. It was just perfect – everything I want from a rom com: cute, appealing leads, offbeat secondary characters, believable conflict even within a quirky story, humour, heart, and wit. We laughed a lot. The movie tells the story of Naveen, a doctor, who yearns to meet the right man and get married. He meets Jay, a white man who was adopted by Indian parents, and much of the comedy and heart comes from the dynamics of Naveen’s family learning to accept Jay as the Nice Indian Boy they want for Naveen. I loved that everyone had a chance for a story arc, and the Indian wedding dance number at the end. This movie was the definition of feel good. Also Jonathan Groff is really pretty.

Saturday: Pizza (the Husband made – cheese, sausage and mushroom, fig and goat cheese, and a pepperoni).

Sunday: Burgers, steamed green beans, tater tots. Lemonade. Chocolate pudding. (Burgers, lemonade, and chocolate were all things that the kids had given up for Lent.) The Husband made the burgers and they were really tasty. The 9 year old at one point said, “It’s a good thing Easter isn’t on a Friday in Lent because we wouldn’t have been able to eat these burgers!” Um…..

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tech week recovery

You know when you draft a post and then life hits you and you don’t post it and the post sits in your drafts folder? Well this is that post…. i had meant to publish it three days ago, but then I’ve been in bed with something the past few days. And now I’m sitting in urgent care so I can figure out what this something is. So why not go ahead and publish, while watching HGTV in the waiting room….

What was that bonkers weather we had here in the DC area last week? The first part of the week was so warm – in the 80s – I thought it was already summer. Then Thursday – SNOW! I thought we had moved past that. And it’s been chilly ever since. Crisp and clear and sunny, but still chilly. And Monday, the kids were released two hours early from school because of an impending tornado. That never happened.

Anyhow, it’s been a bit of a “recover from tech week” week. I had Monday off from work, and that really messed with my mind a little bit. Plus the time change – by mid week I had lost all sense of what day of the week it was. I felt like I just couldn’t catch up, and small things kept going wrong.

This week’s annoyances:
– I broke the interior handle on the driver side of my car. I don’t know what happened. I pulled the handle and it just got stuck. The exterior handle still works. So now I have to either get someone to let me out of the car, climb out another door (which – that parking brake makes that really painful) or I roll down the window, stick my hand out to open the door from the outside, then roll the window back up … all before I can turn off the car. It’s kind of annoying. It’s also kind of funny.

-I waited too late to sign up the 14 year old for a camp she really wanted to do and now it’s wait list only. I feel really terrible about this one. BUT also – the website kept saying that registration was still open, and it’s only when you click over to start the registration that the window that says “Waitlist only” popped up. I feel like this information should be on the website itself.

-Some unbloggable work things where people had big feelings, and I also had big feelings, but I can’t talk about them without throwing other people under the bus.

-My uncle (my dad’s younger brother) passed away. He lived in Taiwan, so I didn’t see him a whole lot, but my father was very close to him.

-I was late to bus pick up.

-General feeling of tiredness, myself and the kids. We had planned to go contra dancing last week but just couldn’t rally. There was one day when I just felt really run down and went to bed after dinner. The 9 year old got sent home from school one day because he was running a fever, and then proceeded to sleep until the next morning. I think we all just need a week of rest and cuddles.

Okay – so I guess lots of tiny things that made the week feel … ugh. Let’s not even mention news on the international/ national front. That is really hard to wrap my head around. BUT… maybe my malaise on the domestic front is just par for the course after tech week. Everything- the physical tasks and also the mental and emotional stuff- that I had been putting off while I worked on my show, just comes to the fore after opening.

I was having a conversation with a fellow stage manager, and she was saying that the third day after she comes home from a gig after being out of town, she is suddenly hit with a wave of restlessness and that “off” feeling where nothing is in the right place and her husband has let the house fall apart. And she said that after years and years of going away and coming home, she has realized that this is just the rhythm of coming off a gig. And she can now mentally tell herself, “Life isn’t falling apart- it’s just the emotional pattern of coming home.” So either she makes herself clean on day two, or on day three she reminds herself to give everyone grace. I know I’ve been working on shows and getting through tech week for twenty years, and yet I still have trouble managing the post tech mental and emotional and physical and household fall out. There has to be better strategies?

The highlight of our weekend was going to see a play – The Sea Between the Oceans. This is the Theatre for Young Artist (TYA) show that the Kennedy Center’s education department commissioned and produced. Sadly, it might be the last TYA show that the KC Education Department produces for a good long while, given current circumstances. This play was soooooo good! It tells the story of a 10 year old boy who goes to visit his favorite author to try to get her to finish the last book in her series. The play slips between the story being told in the book series (to do with pirates and adventures on the high seas) and the the story of the boy and the author. It was an hour and a half of adventure, sword fights, family drama, found family, and the power of books. I might have had a few moist eye moments. I was so inspired by the play that at bedtimes that evening we spent thirty minutes reading aloud, something which we hadn’t done for a while.

I need to take a minute to shout out TYA shows. TYA is a certain category of theatre contract that is devoted to, obviously, young audiences. While those involved aren’t paid as much as a non-TYA show, the hours of rehearsal are limited so that people can still find other work around the rehearsal hours. But even still, the shows are given the same I’m really embarrassed that I had never seen a TYA show at the Kennedy Center before because this one was so so so good and such a brilliant entry point for kids to experience the magic of theatre.

Sunday I took the 6 year old to agility class then went to work. I ran a show (the last performance of the run), had tater tots for dinner with my team as a last hurrah, watched a little bit of tech for the show after mine then went home and watched the last ninety minutes of the Oscars.

I’ve seen exactly zero of the best picture nominees, so that held little interest for me. What I was there for was KPop Demon Hunters which was up for Best Animated Film and Best Song. I loved this quote by the Maggie Kang, the co- director and writer, accepting the Best Animated Film award:

“Thank you to the academy and to all the fans who got us here. And for those of you who look like me, I’m so sorry that it took us so long to see us in a movie like this. But it is here, and that means that the next generations don’t have to go long.”

Growing up there wasn’t a lot of Asian representation in mainstream media, so I still get so very very excited when I see Asian faces on screens these days.

Grateful For:
-Evenings at home. I only had to work one evening the past week, so I got to be home for dinner and evening and bedtime routines. One evening we played Parcheesi – we hadn’t had a game night as a family in a long time. I have mixed feelings about Parcheesi – there is the opportunity to be a real asshole in the game and some people in the family took that opportunity. I guess they would think of setting up immovable blockades that grind the game to a halt as being “strategic” but it was highly annoying.

-weather nice enough to run outside. I haven’t’ been running outside since last fall. I’ve done a few treadmill runs, but I generally don’t enjoy those. It was wonderful to be out in the sunshine, shuffling along as my slow runner’s pace. Also grateful for the time to run outside.

-That the two little kids packed their own lunches. There was one morning when I was so exhausted that I slept in a little bit. When I got downstairs at 7:45am, I found that the 9 year old and the 6 year old had packed their own lunches. Yes there was mayonnaise all over the counter, but … small price to pay for not having to pack the lunches myself.

-Dogs on paths. While waiting for the 14 year old’s voice lesson the other day, I discovered there is a trail three block from her teacher’s house, so I went for a woodsy ramble. It was nice to be outside and among trees. But the delightful thing is that almost everyone who I passed on the trail had a dog. Sometimes two or three or four. It was such a joy to see the dogs running about.

(Side note – the dogs were all off leash even though the sign at the start of the path said all dogs should be on a leash, no longer than 4 feet. So I did think it was strange that almost every dog I saw was off leash. Dog owners – is this a thing? Or is it just the unspoken rule about this trail? I do wonder if the demographics of that part of town is part of the disregard for the sign? At any rate, I did love seeing all the dogs.)

-It’s Cadbury Mini Egg Season!!!! This is my favorite candy season. I haven’t been to the store in weeks, so I didn’t clock it until the Husband bought me three bags.

-A quiet living room. There were a couple moments this week when I had the living room to myself because the kids had gone to school, and the Husband was quietly working downstairs. A quiet living room, a cozy chair, a cup of tea, and a good book that slowly slides into a nap. It was nice.

-Theatre for Young Audiences.

Looking Forward To:
-Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends. We didn’t have on last month, so I’m glad we made time this month. (i had to cancel this because I couldn’t get out of bed yesterday- bummer)

– Day off school. I think my friend and I are going to take our kids to the trampoline park. My friend is the one who just came back from overseas and her son says that one thing he’s missed the most about America was the trampoline parks. (This is TBD, depending on what happens at Urgent care)

-Getting back into a morning routine. After last week of being really tired and sleeping in, even on the weekdays, I want to get back to my morning routine: read, journal, make the bed, and yoga before I need to get into lunches, breakfasts, and cajoling children.

-Spring. Summer. The glimpse of warmer weather that we got this week made me eager for warmer weather and no more cold snow. The hyacinths are starting to bloom along our front walk.

-Reading this book:

I finished a lot of books this week, including The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, which I loved, and this is the sequel.

What We Ate:

Monday: Ethiopian- misir wat, tikil gomen. I had bought injera over the weekend, which inspired this meal.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday

Wednesday: Can’t remember. I think the husband cooked something delicious and I went to bed right after because I wasn’t feeling well.

Thursday: Vegetable Tortilla Soup. From NY Times Cooking.

Friday: Pizza and – not sure what the family watched. I was working this evening.

Saturday: We went out to eat after the theatre. I had corned beef and cabbage.

Sunday: Tortellini with red sauce and green beans. Sunday classic.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: school’s out, packing, pre-trip frenzy

Hello from South Africa! I’ve had such an amazing time so far, and look forward to writing trip recaps. Here is a preview of the adventures so far: (Okay, truth, I started this post last week, but then the tour got busy, and I am now at the tail end of our trip… so think of this post as a kind of Time Machine…. Taking you all way back to life before the trip.)

And in the mean time, some other things that have been going on before we left…

The school year finished up, limping to the end. The 13 year old did not go to school the two half days, and the middle kid were a little salty about having to go. But when he got off the bus the first days, he stay excitedly, “I’m so glad I went to school! We watched cartoons all day!”

Last week was mostly taken up by packing, and logistics for the trip and for being away. And the pool.

Sunday morning we had a swim meet. We had to be at the pool by 8:15am and the meet ran until 12:45pm – it was a long long time to be in the hot hot sun. Luckily I wasn’t assigned a job this meet so I could sit in the shade for most of the meet. The 13 year old swam a great meet – she finished 2nd in the IM and 1st in the butterfly. She also swam the freestyle, breaststroke and IM relay. There aren’t a lot of girl in her age group this year on her team, so she ends up swimming a lot during meets. Afterwards we went to get boba to celebrate then we went to run some last minute errands for our trip.

Packing:
I had aspirations of packing carry on only, but the realities of going to a colder climate made that difficult for me. Cold weather clothes just take up so much more room than warm weather clothes. I also ended up putting all of the 13 year old’s clothes in my bag so that she could travel light. Anyhow, because I’m obsessed with other people’s packing lists, here’s what I ended up bringing from clothes:

3 pairs of pants – Navy Uniqlo Airism joggers, Freen Uniqlo sweatpants joggers, and grey Duluth Trading Noga pants. (I didn’t end up bringing the Navy wide legged pants in the picture; even though I love how they are a little more polished of a pant, the reality is that wide legged pants are not great for travel, specifically for various public bathrooms.)

3 Short Sleeve shirts- Pact yellow striped, grey Uniqlo v-neck (they don’t make this shirt anymore and I’m sad – it’s the perfect for me smooth cotton, slightly boxy t-shirt), and Universal Threads loose black t-shirt.
3 long sleeves shirts – Striped Duluth shirt, wine colored Duluth wool blend hooded tunic, blue dolman sleeved shirt (not sure where this is from – I’ve had it forever)

For warm layers: Peanuts sweatshirt from Uniqlo, biege and white striped sweater from Teat and Cosset (a now defunct company that makes elegant nursing clothes – yes, it’s a nursing sweater), and purple fleece from Duluth. Also blue Wool& dress.

Other things: for cold weather – green beanie, wine colored silk/cashmere scarf, purple buff, Uniqlo puffer vest
For sleep/exercise: t-shirt, plaid sleep pants, running shorts, long sleeve running top.

Extra/back up outfit for plane; blue Duluth leggings, t-shirts, plaid Duluth flannel button up

Not pictured: swim suit, 8 pairs of underwear, 1 sports bra, 1 regular bra. 1 pair of running shoes, raincoat.

Not pictured what I wore on the plane: striped linen shirt dress, black leggings, ankle boots, with tank top (w/ built in bra). What to wear on the plane was a little bit of a conundrum because we would have a couple hours trip into London during our layover and it was 80 degrees in London and 60 degrees in Johannesburg, so I wanted to wear something that would be appropriate for both climates. (It turned out to be 70 and cloudy in London, so the outfit was actually perfect, and I wasn’t sweltering.)

other non-clothes things I packed in my checked bag: Binoculars, toiletries, plug adaptor power strip, water color set (kind of my luxury item I always pack on special trips) , travel alarm clock, luggage scale, period supplies, snacks (ramen and hot chocolate), laundry detergent sheets, an extra book, extra ziploc bags, extra caribiners

Now conceivably I could fit all that into my carry-on rolling suitcase, but I ended up also packing the 13 year old’s sweatshirt, raincoat, and fleece and empty day pack in my stuff. And I wanted to have room in case I wanted to bring back souvenirs. So the big suitcase it was. I wish I had a suitcase that was slightly smaller than out big one – there is a lot of empty space currently, and it’s not easy to get up and down stairs by myself. Oh well.

And for posterity, in my backpack which I carried on: Snacks, toothbrush, tooth paste, wipes, advil, electronics (cables, charges, iFly, power bank), journal, planner, book to read, red flashlight (for use in the dark), iPad, change of clothes (listed above), slippers (which I actually accidentally left on the plane), water bottle, travel mug.

I’ve started keeping a packing list with Google Sheets, and I just copy the previous list into a new tab for the current trip and build off of that. I thought it was useful because I copied the list from Amersterdam because that weather was more similar to South Africa than Taiwan/ Malaysia.

I’ll give a packing post-Mortem after the trip, mostly because I like to make notes for next time on what worked and what didn’t. I’ll report back afterwards on how it all shook out.

Grateful for:

-Tickets to the opera. A friend got us tickets to a production of the Marriage of Figaro and I took the 13 year old. This is one of my favorite opera but I rarely get a chance to see it since I’m often working on it. This production was directed by someone I’ve known for twenty years- she was an assistant director on my very first opera internship. And now she runs her own opera company. It was awesome to see her show.

-Patio umbrella. I ‘m trying to embrace morning patio time this summer, but our patio gets full blazing sun in the morning, so I’m very grateful for our patio umbrella.

-my mother. She’s come to hang out with the two younger kids while I’m in South Africa a with the oldest.

-the pool. Because in ninety degree weather going to the pool is blissfully refreshing

-invitation to help celebrate a friend’s birthday, and the nice people I met there. I’m always a little nervous going to parties where I don’t know anyone, but this is a dear friend and the littles like to see her, so we went out to her birthday party and it was a perfect low key gathering with people who had good stories to tell. One lady brought her dog and when we walked in the door, she said to us, “Two things you need to know about Mazy – Number One: she lies. She might act like she’s hungry but she isn’t. Number two: I don’t’t beat her so don’t fall for her sad dog eyes.” It was a perfect way to break the ice.

-Getting to go on this trip to South Africa!

Looking forward to (The SA edition)

-being in a new continent, where it is winter

-learning about South African history.

-safari and bush walk

-trips into London during our layovers

-spending time with the 13 year old

What we ate (the last week of school/week before travel edition):

Monday: Dump,inns and endamame. This has become of the favorite pool dinners

Tuesday: above mentioned birthday party – our friend had a sandwich bar. I brought mini Brie and apple quiches, that weee easy to make and really tasty. And also garlic endamame. We are eating a lot of endamame these days.

Wednesday: Fish tacos- we are out after getting haircuts and before going to the opera

Thursday: snack dinner at the pool and pasta with jarred red sauce at home for those who wer still hungry after swim practice.

Friday: pizza and Glee- the Husband made pizza.

Saturday: we went out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant; I had ceviche

Sunday: burgers and tater tots and green beans. The Hsuband cooked

Monday: Terriyaki tofu and broccoli, brown rice on the side. This is the recipe for tofu from America’s Test Kitchen Vegan for Everyone cookbook. It is easy and very tasty.

Hope you have a good rest of you week! See you State side for some trip recaps. Tell me what “luxury” item you always pack!

What We Ate This Week – NaBloPoMo Day #4

Even though I try to meal plan, I usually find it more helpful to write out what we actually ate in any given week. This past week was a very functional week of dinner – just about the simplest and fastest ways to get dinner on the table and everyone fed. I think it will be like this for a few weeks since 3 out 5 of us will be at a rehearsal or performance every night of the week.

Monday: Barley Vegetable Soup – from the freezer. I’m not even sure when we made this.

Tuesday: Mac and Cheese and green beans and waffles. Waffles are one of those things that are easy for me to prep ahead on nights when I have to work. I put together the dry ingredients and the Husband add the wet when he gets home. I made savory cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur Baking book, and it was really really tasty – like Mexican food in waffle form.

Wednesday: Ribollita Soup. This wasn’t a great recipe. It was too acidic for our tastes – I think too much crushed tomato? I might throw some pasta in the leftovers to make it more like a pasta dish.

Thursday: Hallowe’en. We went to a Friend’s house and they fed us. Veggies, and dip and pizza before trick or treating, and chicken wings and salad after trick or treating.

Friday: We had dinner out with friends that were visiting. The Husband and I shared sandwiches – a fig, prosciutto and brie sandwich and a BLT. We had fried portabellos for an appetizer that was really tasty.

Saturday: the Husband and two littles had pizza and watched Dispicable Me 4 at home. I had dumplings (from the freezer) at work. The 12 year old went to the opera with friends. I think they had pizza and fries. She sent me a picture!

Sunday: I worked late and had Wednesday’s ribollita in a tortilla. It was a little soggy. Not sure what the Husband made for the kids, but the house smelled really nice when I got home. I love walking into a house that smells like home-cooked dinner.

What was your favorite meal last week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Books Read April and May 2024

I read a lot in April, but I didn’t read much in May because work was really busy, Lots of audiobooks because of commuting, though…

Last Night at The Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo – I picked up this book from my sister in law when I was visiting them in Berkeley. This novel is about Lily Hu, growing up in 1950s San Francisco and how she begins to question and explore her sexuality. It’s always fun to read a book about the place that I’m visiting, particularly since we did go to Chinatown and I had a frame of reference for some of the streets mentioned in the book. I loved all the historical details, and thinking about life as a Chinese American in mid century America. I think ultimately, though, coming of age novels aren’t really my jam right now. I find I get impatient to know what happens to a character once they break free of childhood so I’m always a little disappointed when the books end with them just starting their journey. I liked reading this book and all the characters, but I just wanted there to be more story and less personal angst. I think this is definitely a “me” problem because the book is beautiful written and well researched.

Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal – A 2016 collection of writings, micro essays, drawings, and some things I can’t define. I first heard of Amy Krause Rosenthal through her delightful children’s books. (Oh gosh – I just googled her and she passed away in 2017, which makes me so sad now and tinges the book with bittersweetness) This book has an interactive texting component to it, which given that she has passed away, makes that element really poignant. Anyhow, this book is structured in class subjects and she uses each subject as a lens through which she examines all the things that give us angst and give us joy. I really loved this book – the book is very dog eared from all the passages I wanted to mark. I laughed and laughed so hard. Some favorite excerpts:
Under Social Studies:
“You run into someone from elementary school, someone you haven’t seen in forever. How have you been what have you been up to?! There are many ways to come at their questions, but considering your shared history – you were once prepubescent fort-makers together – there sis really only one response: What have I been up to? I’ll tell you the biggest, craziest things since I last saw you: A few humans tumbled out of my lady parts.“

Under Midterm Essay, about hitting middle age:
“An so it was, everything around me had a bittersweet sheen to it; moments were dramatically stamped FLEETING and TRANSIENT as I roamed about. A simple exchange between my son and me, for example, felt epic in its beauty and poignancy; all that happened was that he tapped on his bedroom window, I looked up at him from the sidewalk below, and he waved…. I lost it when my daughter excitedly asked me to quick come outside, watch this; See how fast my new sneakers make me run?
I didn’t exactly have a midlife crisis. I had a mid-life cry-bliss. “

And also has pithy charts and drawings like this one under Language Arts:

Murder Your Employer- the McMaster’s Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes – This is a novel about how to, well, murder your employer. I borrowed the audio book because it was narrated by Neil Patrick Harris and Simon Vance. The novel centers around Cliff, who is recruited to a school that trains people in murder, kind of a Hogwarths for would be killers. I thought this book was gleefully convoluted, and Holmes skewers the mystery genre to perfection. If you’re not into murder mysteries this might not be your thing, but if you do like them, this will feel delightfully similar in tone to Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone.

The Obsession by Jesse Q Sutanto – Read for Mother Daughter Book Club. The 12 year old picked this out and then told me I had to read it. It’s about a high school boy who developed an obsessive crush on a classmate and how his crush retaliates. I didn’t love this book – all the characters are either morally terrible or clueless in a harmful way. The 12 year old loved it though – she loves novels with a good twist and this one was quite twisty. I did yelp out loud at one point. I have enjoyed other books by Jess Q Sutano, though – I think she writes fun and entertaining books.

My Brilliant Friend be Elena Ferrente– FINALLY finished this book from Cool Bloggers Book Club. My take away – WTF? Who are all these people? I mean a) literally in the sense that I couldn’t keep track of all the characters, and b) I could never figure out what they were about.

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue – This beautifully written novel is about a village in Africa that is contaminated by the digging on their land by a BIG American corporation. The villagers spend years trying to get the big company to stop the digging and to pay reparations for all the death and disease the digging and toxic run off has has caused. The effort has a huge cost to the people of the village. This was a sad and frustrating read for me, as might be expected whenever a story pits people without resources against huge corporations and corrupt governments. I really liked this book, despite that- or maybe because of it. Mbue finds surprising nuances and complexities in corruption and survival.

The Tattooist of Auchwitz by Heather Morris, read by Richard Armitage– I picked this audiobook because it was read by Richard Armitage, who I’ve been a fan of since the BBC production of North and South. As might be expected from the title, this is a very very sad book – the misery was a little unrelenting. At the same time, I thought there were parts of it that were stunning even in the face of the autrocities of the Holoucaust.

Sourdough by Robin Sloan, read by Therese Plummer– I picked this up becauae I saw it on a list of short audiobooks. It is about a young computer programmer who moves to the Bay Area to work for a tech company and starts making sourdough bread in her spare time. I thought this satirical and charming book was a fun read, but the end was a little unhinged and bizarre. The astute observations on life in the Bay area made me laugh. There were parts that made me want to revive my sourdough starter and start baking bread again, the descriptions of bread baking were so evocative and romantic. I don’t love books where the ending comes out of left field, and this book kind of just left me scratching my head. I listened to a lot of this during late night commutes and there were parts where I thought, “Maybe this doesn’t make sense because I’m tired’.” And I’d go back and re-listen, a couple times even. But nope, the story was just that odd in places.

My Fair Brady by Brian D. Kennedy – YA novel set in the world of high school theatre. (I suggested this as a mother daughter book club book, but I’m not sure the 12 year old read it.) High school senior Wade is passed over for the lead in the school production of My Fair Lady, so he decides to befriend Elijah in an attempt to show people how not self centered he is. Elijah on the other hand has joined the lighting crew for the show in order to make some friends, and jumps at th eopportunity to make friends with super popular Wade. I always find theatre books fun to read – seeing what an author got right or wrong compared to my own experiences. I loved those details in this book, but I didn’t love Wade. The concept of the book is based on what an asshole Wade is, but the story is told in first person and I find it very rare that people truly come off as assholes in first person.

On my proverbial night stand:

Landslide by Susan Conley- Maine author to go with our Maine trip. Really enjoying this book.

Life is Hard: How Philisophy can Help us Find Our Way by Kieran Setiya- A couple years ago I read Setiya’s book Midlife: a Philosophical Guide, and found it so thoughtful to read. This book is about the various things that can make life challenging- infirmity, loneliness, failure, injustice- and seeing if phlosophy can help us navigate them,

Wild Genius On The Moors by Juliet Baker- Charlotte Brontë has died! Yet there are still thirty pages to go….

To Night Owl from Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer, audiobook- charming epistolatory novel about two 12 year olds whose fathers have met and fallen in love- it’s a little too cute sometimes (perhaps because of the audiobook format) but mostly proving delightful.

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White- reading aloud at bedtime to the kids,

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty- another Maine author- a collection of interconnected short stories. I’m enjoying to so far.

Spring Break Trip Preview

In the St. Louis Airport waiting for our connection. We’ve had a lovely family and fun filled ten days.

I feel like I never post in real time, but what else to do while waiting for a flight?

Here are some previews

If I never get around to writing recaps, at least here are the highlights!

Weekly recap + what we ate: A week of theatre

I’ve been knee deep the previous few weeks in getting ready for our Sprig Break trip, but here are some random going’s on in this neck of the woods….

Through some coincidence, a few weeks ago was quite a theatre filled week.

Saturday, I went to the opening night of the show the Opera was putting on. I had seen the dress rehearsal, but then I got an invite to the opening night party and thought it might be fun to see the show again and then go to the party. However, I didn’t have anything to wear to a semi-fancy shindig. The past couple of opening night parties that I’ve been invited to, I’ve always been working, so I’ve gone to the parties in the black clothes that I wore to run the show. Nothing fancy, but I think people understand that I was coming straight from working the show, so it was okay. But this was different because I got to go to the show and then was coming to the party, so I felt like I did have to get somewhat dressed up and it had been aaaaages since I had done that. I think last time I had to get dressed up, I had a Rent the Runway subscription and found something that way. Also last time I was six months pregnant and hadn’t told anyone at work, so there was that added layer of finding the right dress And I feel like my body is very different from back then, even when I was six months pregnant.

I ordered a bunch of dresses off Amazon – did you know that Amazon has a partnership with Rent the Runway and sell their dresses? So I ordered some. But they hadn’t arrived by Saturday morning, and I was starting to get a little nervous. Then I realized the 4 year old had been invited to a birthday party at a play space in the mall. I emailed the host, “So…. is this a drop off party?”

Side note – I think this might be a statement of the evolution of my (lack of) parenting concern. There was no way eight years ago when my oldest was 4 that I would have left her at a drop off party at a hugely public place like the mall. I think even at someone’s house, I still would have thought twice unless I knew the parents really well. But with my current third child 4 year old… drop off parties are golden to me. You want to take my child for two hours? Please and thank you!

So I dropped of the 4 year old at the party and then took myself to Macy’s where I tried on a couple of things, got discouraged and sad and then I found something that wasn’t terrible – it was flowy and light, but even though it was a fun print, it was black and grey, colours I usually avoid. I wear so much black for work, I try not to wear it in life. So I was about to get the just okay dress, when I walked by a rack and my eye was caught by a bright red dress. I love red. It’s my favorite colour to wear, so I was immediately smitten. Only when I looked more closely, the dress turned out to be a jumpsuit. And I’ve always said that I’m not a jumpsuit person. How do I even pee in it?!? And I put the jumpsuit back. Then took another lap and came back to the jumpsuit and thought, “Okay, I’ll just try it on to see.” And it turned out to look kind of cute and I loved the colour, so I put aside my fears of not being able to pee quickly when I need to and bought the jumpsuit dress and hoped that I had an appropriate bra to wear with it.

Well, when I got home, I found that all the dresses I had bought from Amazon had arrived after all, so I tried them on, and I realize that my middle region is not longer ideal for comfortably wearing cocktail attire – or maybe it still is, only I would have to redefine my idea of “comfortable” to include sucking in my stomach constantly. But I go to opening night parties in large part for the free fancy food, so sucking in my gut was not going to solve anything. So even though I thought some of the dresses stunning, I decided to send them all back and wear the red jumpsuit. I paired it with my blazer, a purple scarf around the waist to give some shape, and the one pair of heels I own, which are super comfy until you take them off and then you realize that, no, actually, they weren’t that comfortable to begin with.

Anyhow, the show was delightful, the party afterwards was lovely and I got to ride hime with my work BFF, which is always nice because when we are in production, I sometimes don’t get to see her much since we work in different (though adjacent) departments.

The next day, was a) daylights savings, b) a family trip to see the high school production of Beauty and the Beast, and c) the Oscars. Daylight saving certainly crept up on me- I got hime after midnight from the opening night party and as I was puttering around pre-bed, it hit me- “Oh nuts! I have to set the clocks forward!” Then forgot and the next morning realized at 7:45 that it was actually 8:45 and we were going to be late for agility class (me and the 4 year old) and church (the Husband and the other two kids.).

Beauty and the Beast at the local high school was the second theatre excursion for me that week. This time, the whole family went, even the little kids. When I was growing up, our high school did not do musicals, so I’m kind of new to the whole “high school musical” thing. I didn’t know what to expect, and tried to go in with no expectations. It ended up being a really great time. There was low level theatre magic, a cast of many many many enthusiastic teenagers, and some very talented ones. There were body mics and follow spots and a full orchestra in the pit. What a huge undertaking! I’ll definitely be going to more in the future. I sometimes feel that I’ve spoiled my kids by taking them to a fair bit of professional theatre and opera, and lately I’ve been thinking that we should go to different levels of theatre so that they get a sense of the full breadth of theatre and know that it doesn’t have to be Broadway to be worth seeing. Sure a high school production is not going to be as flashy or polished as a professional show, but there is, I think, just as much value in theatre as a community activity. There is something really special about how theatre can build a community of makers and and those who participate and support them as the audience.

The third show I saw in the week was the touring production of Sondheim’s Company – his musical about a perpetually s8ngle New Yorker and his married friends. I had gotten tickets a few weeks before and lined up a sitter so that the Hsuband and I could go. I had been on the fence about going but then a friend of mine texted and said, “If you have a chance to go, the sets and scene shifts are worth it.” So I got tickets.

Only the day of the show, our sitter never showed up. She was supposed to come at 6:30pm, and we waited until 7pm. (In retrospect, I hope she is okay… I should check in with her. We’ve used her several times before, and she isn’t always prompt, but 30 minutes late is kind of a lot. The whole things is kind of discouraging; we have had terrible luck with sitters, and as much as I would love to have a date night once in a while, it has proven very difficult to find a reliable sitter. Well, next year the oldest child can legally babysit so maybe that will help solve things a little.)

Anyhow, at 7pm, it was decided that I should take the 12 year old and the Husband would stay home with the other kids. Not the evening of theatre that I had planned, but it would have to do. I had qualms about whether or not the show was appropriate for a 12 year old, but I figured she would understand it or not and we could talk about it. Or not. So we jumped in the car and raced down to the theatre, only missing the first five minutes of the show.

The show was quite well done, and my friend was right, it was technically very fluid. This production of Company does some gender switching so that the lead is now female instead of male – Bobbie instead of Bobby. Some of the gender switching worked for me and some of it didn’t quite. “Getting Married Today” was brilliantly funny. “Another Hundred People” had so much energy and momentum. “You Could Drive Personal Crazy”, in the other hand, didn’t quite work for me- it just felt like a campy musical number and none of these men seemed like they would really date Bobbie.

I think my biggest issue with this production, and maybe actually with Company in general, is that Bobbie/Bobbie is not a very interesting character. I know the show is a series of vignettes about single life, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care whether or not Bobbie found her way. And maybe this is also where I am in life right now- I remember seeing Company when I was in my 20s and the story spoke to me a lot more. But watching the perpetually and willfully single now is just not as appealing. I feel like I’ve lived through that, and it’s just a hair stressful to watch it onstage. So upshot for me: entertaining, love the music, but dramatically a little “meh”.

When I asked the 12 year old what she thought of the show, she said, “I like opera more. At least with opera there is a dramatic story.” I thought that was a hilarious observation.

Drawing class– colored pencils, (Also side note – when I was growing up in Canada, we called these pencil crayons, but in Marica they are called colored pencils and no one knows what I’m talking about when I say pencil crayons).

This flower painting is the first homework assignment and it featuresa variety of colored pencil techniques. One of my favorite techniques, which proves quite tricky is shaving pencil lead onto wet paper to create the “sparkle” at the top of the flowers, I think it would be cooler if I could distribute the shavings better rather than it clumping like it did in the picture.

The second homework assignment was apples on a branch:. I’m actually really pleased with how the leaves turned out. I think the more I do this, the better I get at drawing what things look like rather than what I think it should be, breaking visual elements down into lines and spaces rather than just drawing a “leaf”. The details of the apple could be better- the one on the right is a little too round. Still, I do love how colored pencils make it easy to blend all the different apple colors.

And then- here is the in class assignment. I didn’t finish it in class, but I thought it is fun to see the difference between the apples that are painted watercolor pencil (the apples in front) and those that are just watercolor pencil that I didn’t have a chance to paint yet (those in back). I still have to add in the background and finish the detail on the table too.

Other lovely things:

Board game night with the family. We played Ticket to Ride and for the first time, no one knocked the trains askew or stole trains to play with. it was a really lovely night. I did win, but it was pretty nerve wracking for a minute – I had to build Seattle to New York, and wasn’t sure if I was going to make it…

-We have traded our Saturday mornings on the basketball court for Saturday mornings one the soccer field as one kids’ season ends and another kid’s season begins. During the first soccer game, I challenged my 12 year old to go running with me while the 7 year old had practice. To my surprise, she said yes. Two bribes, though – a) I had to let her listen to something or her own choosing, each of us taking one AirPod, and b) a special treat, so we stopped at a coffee shop on our run. We managed about 1.5 miles together, most of it not at all fast, but hey, I got my tween to come running with me, so that’s a win either way.

– I parallel parked my car on the first try! That made me ridiculously happy. It usually takes me an embarrassingly long time wiggling back and forth to make it. okay, the space was a good size, but still!

– The 12 year old was the Mystery Reader at the 4 year old’s classroom. She did an amazing job- engaged with the kids, and told them to sit down when they got too close. The four year old’s teacher asked if the school could hire the 12 year old because she was so good with kids.

– A satisfying purchase– this three month calendar.

We have a calendar in our dining room already, but I wanted something with a more long term view. Most of the three month calendars I found on Amazon only came in quarter years and I couldn’t tell if you had to re-write each month as you move it up the chain. I finally found this one and the brilliant thing about it is that each month is movable, so at the end of the month, you just pull it from it’s current coil and put it on the coil one slot up. Plus it has lines for writing, definitely pricier than the other options, but so much more functional.

But also- much as I love the new calendar, it makes me panic a little because when I can see the year three months at a time, it reminds me that May/summer is pretty close.

–PEAK BLOOM!!!!!! Okay, this is actually a few days before peak bloom, but I had to be downtown for a meeting so I decided to go in early and go for a run by the Tidal Basin. I really wanted to make a trip to the cherry blossoms happen this year because 150 or so of the trees will be chopped down this coming year so they can repair the retaining wall for the Tidal Basin. Makes me sad, but it seems a necessary safety issue. Anyhow, it was a short visit, but still stunning:

Grateful for:

-Evening light. The mornings have been a little rough, but how I love that the sun sets later. There is natural light in our dining room for dinner, there is light for walks after dinner, there is light to go to the park after the school bus gets in.

– Along those lines, I’m grateful that the 12 year old’s basketball workout is walking distance from home. It makes it an easy excuse for an evening walks.

– also along those lines, I’m grateful yfor neighborhood parks. We live within a 15 minute walk of three parks and now that there is more daylight, they have become an impromptu gathering spot. We will often run into families we know there and it just feels like one of the first signs of spring, all these people emerging from hibernation to gather at playgrounds again,

– and one more thing (I guess all my gratitudes this week are centered around the weather/time change) I’m grateful for the back patio and being able to eat outside. We have a couple month’s window when we can eat outside before the mosquitoes get fierce, and right now is the time. I love eating outside – it just makes a meal seem more like an intentional event.

– vegetables from our neighbor. our next door neighbor works at a Farmer’s market and periodically he will just drop off a bunch of vegetables for us. Thanks to him we were able to have some pretty vegetable heavy meals.

Looking forward to:

– new suitcases. My old suitcase was probably twenty yesrs old and the wheels had fallen apart, so I ordered two new suitcases to try out. I’m still on the fence as to carry on backpack vs. rolling suitcase, but I think this next trip is a rolling suitcase trip, so we’ll go with that. The little ones wear super excited by the box that the suitcases arrived in

-Spring break trip to see my brother. (We might already be there, actually… details to come,)

– going back to work on a show. I miss being in rehearsal and having structure to my days…

What we ate:

Sunday: snacks and leftovers. The 12 year old had swimming and it was Oscar night, so we kind of all just fended for ourselves. Some kids might have had popcorn for dinner,

Monday: tofu broccoli stir fry

Tuesday: my notes on this day are hazy. It says leftovers.

Wednesday: Kale paneer, from Meers Sodha’s East. With homemade paneer. I always thing it is too much work to make my own paneer than when is done it, I realize it is really simple and much easier than finding it in the store.

Thursday: sheet pan chicken and potatoes. I don’t cook meat as often as the kids would like, so I decided that since I was going to leave them with a sitter this evening, I would make them a chicken dinner. Well, this was the night the sitter didn’t show up…

Friday: pizza (take out) and the first Avengers movie.

Saturday: pan fried fish and green beans – the husband cooked.

Sunday: pasta salad with marinated beans. Jenny Rosenstrach’s marinated beans are amazing, it’s a quick and flavorful protein that can be eaten alone or added to salads or grains. I used them this night as the base for a pasta salad. Quick vegan pantry meal.

Monday: Eggplsnt stir fry- the Husband cooked. It had a tasty spicy gochujang sauce.

Tuesday: chicken curry in the Instant Pot, cucumber raita on the sideWe had a friend over for dinner and this was an easy, homey make-ahead meal.

Wednesday: Chicken curry leftovers, with eggs added. Egg curry was one of our favorite new meals last year and it worked really well to add boiled eggs to Tuesday’s chicken curry.

Thursday: Leftovers since we are trying to eat down the fridge.

Friday: tacos at my brother’s house in Berkeley!

On Wednesday morning piano lessons

The two older kids take piano lessons at 7:15am on Wednesdays. When the piano teacher first offered that as a time slot – her only available opening – I thought, it was an alarming idea. But then I thought about it, and actually, it made sense for us. My kids are early risers and they don’t leave for school until 8:00am. Having piano lessons first thing in the morning meant that I could take them, and then we wouldn’t have to figure out a carpool situation after school when I often wasn’t available.

But I’m going to be honest – it is a hard push most Wednesdays to get them there. Getting them up, dressed. Sometimes there is breakfast involved. Sometimes I pick up breakfast afterwards for them as a treat. Making sure they have their books, which should have been put together the night before – there is literally an alarm on my phone at 7:30pm on Tuesday night called “Find your piano books”. And the 4 year old also has to come along for the ride because I can’t leave her at home. So that’s another body to wrangle into the car seat, often still in her pajamas. And for some reason, the children that wake up on their own at 6am six days out of the week need to be dragged out of bed at 6:50am on Wednesday mornings. Needless to say, there are many alarms set for Wednesday mornings at our house.

Getting to 7:15am piano lessons feels especially hard in winter, when it is dark and cold outside as we get in the car. Indeed, the whole thing can feel like some sort of secret stealth mission – bundling into the car while the houses around us are still dark and still, as if we are on the lam or something. Even in the summer when it is light, the quiet expectant air of morning contrasts with my frazzled hurry and I try to make it to lessons on time.

Piano lessons are just a little over a mile away – two left turns and one right. Yet there is always one moment, when we take that second left straight and head straight east, that always surprises me. The turn towards the rising sun is never the same, depending on the time of year. Some days it is still dark with only the faintest hit of dawn. Some days, we drive straight into a blinding sunrise. And I have to squint and concentrate to stay on the road. If I’m good I’ll have remembered to put on my sunglasses beforehand.

And then some days, like last week, as the daylight hours finally begin to lengthen, I take that left and I see the most beautiful golden pink dawn sky, sunrise just starting. The tangled jaggedly trees that line the street silhouetted against the blushing horizon. And it’s gorgeous and it’s just a moment. And I want to capture the sheer beauty of it, but I’m driving and that would be irresponsible and probably dangerous, so I just keep driving and drinking in the pink and I say to the kids, “Look at the beautiful sky!!!” Because I don’t want them to miss it. Because I know that the next week I won’t be guaranteed this sight as I turn that corner, so I might as well enjoy it now.

Anyhow, as I turn the calendar into February, I just want to remind myself to look up as I round those bends because beautiful things might be just around the corner.