Contemplating the things that matter when I step out of the dark
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!
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!
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.
We are deep into October! Even though the weather has been in the so very up and down here, it does feel as if we are firmly into fall. The trees have started to take on crimson and gold tips and tinges, I wake up in pre-dawn darkness, and we dine as the sun is slipping away. One of the true indications of fall for me is when the morning sunlight slants sharply into the kitchen through the window over the sink so that washing dishes in the morning is a blinding exercise. Sometimes I do dishes leaning to one side so I can avoid the sun’s rays piercing my eyeballs. Sometimes I just decide that the dishes can wait until the sun move on. Then I tell myself- just wait a few weeks and this timing of sunlight will pass. Like many things things in life…
In the mean time I will enjoy pumpkins…
Leaves…
and making applesauce:
I mentioned last post that we were having a birthday party for the youngest and all my anxiety about last minute planning and lack of party guests. Well, the lack of RSVPs actually turned out for the best because it was raining all weekend, banishing the possibility of having any part of the festivities outside. And given that the party was at our house – well, it seems like 11 kids and 10 adults made for a plenty big enough party inside our house. House size is certainly relative – our current house is definitely bigger than our first house, yet is not as big as houses you would find in our area- but all the same, I wouldn’t objectively call our house small, yet I can’t imagine having any more people inside than we had for this birthday party.
We basically set up three areas for everyone: the living/dining room for food and cookie decorating; the toy room for, well, toys and playing and we have a Swedish climbing ladder there that was very popular; and the basement where we cleared everything breakable and set up music for a dance party. I will say the toy room was at max capacity what with everyone wanting to play with the toys and try out the climbing ladder, and parents in there to make sure no one fell off the climbing wall. Or at least no one got seriously hurt falling off the climbing wall. If we had to do this again, I might clear more toys out of the toy room to give more space – that whole room was a disaster zone. It still is. Also maybe make parents sign waivers if their kids are going to try the climbing ladder. Kidding. But maybe I shouldn’t be.
The cookie decorating, which was the main activity went rather well, I think. People seemed to really like it. I had gotten the idea from seeing a local sweet shop offer the same thing, but there the kids would also bake the cookies. I figured a bunch of four year olds would not have the patience to roll out and bake and decorate cookies, so we just went with the decorating bit.
We put two kid sized tables in the living room, covered them with paper and set out bowls of icing and jars of sprinkles. We gave each kid a piece of parchment paper on which to decorate their cookies, in an attempt to try to contain the mess.
Things that I think made the cookie decorating go well:
– We ordered the cookies rather than trying to bake them myself. We called our local bakery and ordered 48 unfrosted cookies. They make the best cookies and I didn’t have to bake any. And the cookies came in a variety of shapes, which was fun.
– We made all the frosting using a royal icing mix. I was just going to go get a few tubs of Duncan Hines frosting, but the Husband went to a cake decorating store by his office and they showed him royal icing mix- you just mix it with water and voila! This was waaaaaay better than Duncan Hines- it was spreadable but stiff enough not to be too messy. I mixed it with gel food colouring so we had three different colours plus white. Another great thing about royal icing is that it hardens as it dries, which gives the cookies that professional cookie sheen. I have an extra bag of royal icing mix and I’m excited to use it for Christmas.
– We used old spice jars for the sprinkles. This was the Husband’s brilliant idea. The Husband had bought six different kinds of sprinkles from the cake decorating store. I was going to put the sprinkles in a small bowl. The Husband had the idea to wash out the old spice containers that we had been keeping for a rainy day and put the sprinkles in those so the kids could just shake them out. It was still messy, but so much less messy than bowls.
-For spreading the icing, we bought 4” offset spatulas from a restaurant supply store. The small size was good for little hands and much easier to use than plastic knives. Plus I had the kids take them home as their party favor.
One thing I wasn’t prepared for was that the kids would want to eat their cookies right away. We had bought cute boxes for everyone to take their cookies home, but I think only used half of them. Kids were very eager to try their colorful efforts as soon as they were done. At the end of the party, one kid asked me, “Are there goody bags?” and I thought, “Well… you were supposed to take your cookies home…” We did also get mini rolling pins to go in the boxes, which were super cute and I had a parent tell me a couple days later that they are great for playing with kinetic sand.
My other favorite thing from the party is that we ordered soft pretzels. I was driving down the major street by us when I saw a yard signs advertising The DC Pretzel Company. I love soft pretzels, so of course I had to look them up. Turns out a guy, originally from Philadelphia, started a weekend business making soft pretzels. During the week, he works for the federal government, and then on the weekend, he makes pretzels out of one of those shared industrial kitchens. And the service was great! I had all sorts of questions on how many to order, and my email was answered promptly (with a 10% off coupon!) and then when I had to add additional pretzels to my original order, the owner texted me to reassure me that the two orders would be combined. And the pretzels were sooooo tasty! Chewy, malty, and flavorful. And vegan. And since we ordered too many, we were lucky to eat them for days – we reheated them in the oven and they were just as chewy and tasty. 10/10!!! I would definitely order again. (Thank you for coming to my Yelp review.)
The morning of the four year old’s birthday, the Husband said, “It’s going to be so weird- we won’t have a baby in the house anymore. After twelve years!” And it’s true- there’s something bittersweet for me about no longer being in the baby phase. I loved having babies – the soft cheeks and unformed blob of sweetness. Now it feels like my kids are all muscles and limbs. And opinions and thoughts. I know time only moves forward, and watching kids grow from helpless bundles into real people really makes that thought hit home, showing me every day that there is no going backwards.
Other things and happenings – I was listening to the podcast The Fix, which talks about work, more specifically advancing equality in the workplace. I find the hosts and her guests very insightful on issues that I do think about a lot especially since I work in an industry that is historically (and let’s be honest continues to be) not terribly diverse. The episode I was listening to talked about the importance of building self-awareness at work – and one exercise is for ten days to take 15 minutes a day and write down: What went well today, What didn’t go so great, what could I do differently? I’ve been trying to do this reflection on a work and personal level lately and I think it’s been a good frame for thinking back.
Going well – Chore spinner! It used to be that the kids each had their specific chores to do after dinner. Then it came up that the kids were always wanting to do someone else’s chore, and it wasn’t fair that all one kid got to do was take the napkins down to laundry, or it wasn’t fair that so and so got to use the broom. So a couple weeks ago, we instituted a chore spinner. There are six evening chores and each kid spins to find out which two chores they will be responsible for. The chores are:
-dining room (wipe down table and sweep floor)
-dry dishes and help put them away
-pick up the living room and the foyer
-take the napkins and dirty towels down to the laundry room
-pick up the bedroom and make the beds
-wipe down the bathroom counter after teeth brushing.
Clearly some chores are faster than others, but the beauty of the new system is that one person doesn’t have the easy task all the time – it’s totally up to chance who will get the much coveted bathroom counter wipe down. (Also – side note, the kids at some point also started wiping down the toilet in addition to the bathroom counter. Not sure how I feel about this – on the one hand, it’s the toilet can be a little gross, but on the other hand, they are using Clorox wipes, so it’s should be pretty sanitary. Also – I find it fascinating that they don’t really know yet that wiping down the toilet is considered gross to some people. ) WE do help the little kids with the dining room and the living room if they draw that because those are bigger tasks and they kind of still suck at sweeping. All in all, though, it has made the kids less grumbly about chores. Who know how long the novelty of the chore spinner will work as a means to more cleaning/less whining evenings, but I’ll take whatever I can get on the kids and chores front these days.
Another thing that went well recently: Biking to work. I got to bike to work this week. At some point last spring I did something to one my bike inner tubes and then the bike languished in the shed for many months. The Husband actually fixed it a while ago but I just hadn’t found time to get the bike out. But this week, I pulled it out and biked to work on a day when I didn’t have to do the school bus run. I was reminded about how much I love riding to work. I did have to walk the bike up the last hill before work because I misjudged my shifting and didn’t shift in time to make the climb easier, but all in all, it was a nice ride.
Things not really going well right now: I’m adjusting to being back at work. The work part is fine, the home part has been a bit of a mess. I’ve been very bad at predicting when I’ll get home, which, understandably, causes much consternation. I think I’ll be home by 6:30p, and I don’t get home until 8:30pm and it makes bedtime tricky. This issue for me is two fold:
1) getting sucked into lengthy last minute conversations and tasks at work. I’ve gotten pretty good at finishing all the tangible tasks on my own to do list in a timely manner, but I’m discovering that having more responsibility means more people want your attention on things. Which is great and all, and I want to have thoughtful and thorough conversations, but sometimes I need to figure out how to put a pin in something and get out the door. Or to have more succinct conversations?
2) not communicating with the Husband when I’m coming home when these last minute things pop up. Rehearsal is done at 5:30pm, so I tell him I can be home by 6:30pm, but then one thing and another and suddenly it’s 6:15 and I’m still typing the rehearsal notes and then someone asks my input on something and I get sucked back into work things and then when I next look up, it’s 7:00pm. I know the answer is to text at 6:15pm saying “I’ll be home at 7pm”, but I’m always optimistic at 6:15pm that I’m about to hit send and walk out the door and I’ll only be ten minutes late home, so is that really worth a text or should I just plow right on so I can leave? That’s the internal monologue. And the answer should be, “yes, just send that text.”
Anyhow, I’m working on it. I think from the work perspective I have good work-life balance, but from the life perspective, work is winning out a little right now. hmmmm…. maybe I should unpack that a little.
What can I do differently: (I like the framing of do “differently” vs. do “better”. because if the expectation is that changes *must* improve things, it feels so daunting. But if the idea is just to change the way something is done, then it makes the process of change much more forgiving.) I think I need an automated system or reminder to help me track time after rehearsal is over so I continue to be efficient and conscious of time. Maybe an alarm at 6:25 to remember that the intern needs to wrap up and I should send a status report to the Husband?
Podcast recommendation: On Being is back! I love this podcast for the meandering and thoughtful conversations. The first episode of the new season is a hilarious, wise, and touching conversation with theologian Kate Bowler who learned that she had cancer when she was 35 and wrote a book (or perhaps a couple) about it. As expected the conversation dissects on the idea of mortality and how lucky we are to be alive – “Ageing is an effing privilege,” she says at one point. And I loved the idea Bowler brings up about our 2pm/2am self – that the former is where we have it all together and the latter is the vulnerable, darker self who feels alone. This idea that there will be moments of every day where you feel like a completely different person, where your ability to deal with life completely evaporates. And that is okay. Because you are still you. It’s a little hard to describe why I loved this episode so much, but it was a perfect contemplative listen for a long walk. And Kate Bowler is so very, very funny too. I laughed out loud many times.
Other updates on my litany of complaints:
– I’ve booked dentist appointments with a pediatric dentist for the two littles, so hopefully that will get the ball rolling on taking care of their cavities.
– The Husband and I went to test drive a mini van. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there will be a minivan in our family. It won’t be my main vehicle, but it will likely replace my 20 year old car. I will move over to driving the Husband’s current car and he will drive the mini van.
-still no progress on window treatments in the living room…
Grateful For:
-The now four year old for being such a bright spot in my life. She is such a happy ball of energy. Never one to shy from a challenge, she climbs playgrounds and cabinets fearlessly. She is independent and capable, yet quite agreeable. When she falls, she bounces right back up with a cheerful, “I’m okay!” She is always telling us, “I got this!” She is the child most likely to mischievously cause mayhem and mess, but also the child most likely to clean that mess up. I hope she carries that sense of adventure and responsibility into the rest of her life.
– Being able to shower with the kids at home. It hasn’t always been the case, but as I got in the shower one morning, I thought, “Wow, it’s nice to be able to disappear for fifteen or twenty minutes and not worry about someone hurting themselves or doing something irrevocable to the house.
– Kimchi. There have been many a time when I get home late at night and I’m hungry and I look in the fridge and pull out the bag of kimchi and whatever else might be in there. And the kimchi makes the whatever else taste amazing. I’m grateful for kimchi for being a pretty healthy thing to eat at 10:30pm at night and for being delicious.
Looking Forward to:
-My show. Last week, I started rehearsal for my next opera. It’s been lovely so far. Certainly there have been things to navigate, but overall it’s been a good process and I do actually look forward to going to rehearsals everyday.
– Instant Pot meals. Opera season means I’m gone many many evenings, so when I can, I like to make dinner in the morning for the family to eat when they get home in the afternoon. I borrowed several Instant Pot cookbooks from the library and am excited to explore them.
-This book:
I’ve been in kind of a reading slump lately – In September I started many many books but they all had to be returned before I could finish them. I’m not sure if it’s a time thing or a motivation thing. I started reading this book this week and I can’t wait to find time every day to read it. It’s about three women who, after years of living with the casual misogyny of everyday life, discover in middle age how powerful they really are. It’s a little magical and a lot angry. I’m sucked in.
What We Ate (The First half of October version):
Friday: Pizza and movie night. Captain America. Fun, shiny entertainment.
Saturday: Birthday party leftovers – pretzels, veggies adn hummus, chips and salsa, cookies, cake, charcuterie plate. All the tasty things.
Sunday: Snack dinner from Birthday party leftovers again. This was such a lazy day – we didn’t have afternoon activities, so we stayed home and watched A Knight’s Tale. I had seen the 2001 Heath Ledger movie in the theatre when it first came out and thought it would make a fun movie to watch with the kids. It is just as stylish and cheeky as I remember. Though, of course watching it twenty years later and with kids, I found myself wishing that the storyline with the father were more fleshed out. It’s so interesting to watch movies of my youth with older eyes and brain and heart.
Monday: Mac and cheese (from the blue box) and edemame.
Tuesday: Nachos. We had a lot of chips leftover from the birthday party, so we sprinkled some beans, cheese, peppers, and jalapenos on them and made a couple pans of nachos.
Wednesday: Eggplant curry. vegan. I had some yellow curry paste to use up. It was definitely spicier than I thought it would be. I ate leftovers all week, tucked into a wrap.
Thursday: I worked this night. The Husband and kids got wings for dinner.
Friday: pizza and movie. I think this was the night they watched the Lego Batman movie.
Saturday: Dumplings and green beans.
Sunday: Leftovers and toast. I want ot get back ot Sunday night being leftovers/clean out the fridge night.
Monday: Garlic-y pork in the Instant Pot. Recipe from Melissa Clark’s book Dinner in and Instant. Eaten with tortillas.
Tuesday: no clue. I don’t think I was home, so the Husband cooked.
Wednesday: Lentils and sweet potato in the Instant Pot from the Good Housekeeping IP cookbook. The family liked this much better than I thought they would and the leftovers were great taken for lunch in wraps later the week.
Thursday: Noodles and tofu, the Husband cooked.
Friday: Pizza and Lilo and Stich. (I was working) When the 11 year old was a toddler we tried to watch this movie, but she got really upset by the chaos caused by Stitch and we had to turn it off. Clearly chaos does not bother her anymore.
Saturday: Dumplings and Broccoli. There is a theme to our Saturday nights
Sunday: Tuna potato salad. Kitchen sink meal. I had some potatoes to used up, and canned tuna is an easy protein, so I combined a can of tuna, steamed potatoes, pickled onion, radishes, and green pepper together. Olive oil, a dash of Dijon mustard and lots of black pepper. It was a lot tastier than I thought it would have been twenty minute earlier when I was staring in despair at the fridge without a plan for dinner.
Monday: Eggplant with pickled raisins and mint from the cookbook Ruffage. The Husband cooked. He had picked up this gorgeous cookbook from the library and it has a lot of surprising ways to prepare vegetables.
Tuesday: Green beans sauteed with tomatoes and garlic. The Husband cooked. I think this was also from Ruffage.
Wednesday: Bahn mi sandwiches from our favorite Vietnamese place. My father was in town and he bought us dinner.
Thursday: Dinner out with a Friend. I had mussels and paprika cauliflower.
Friday: Pizza and Lilo and Stitch 2. I was working that evening – there was no comment about the movie, so I guess it was entertaining?
For Spring Break, we went to Amsterdam and here are the start of trip recaps! It was our first time on a plane since January of 2019. Also our first time on a plane as a family of five, which the calculus of sitting on an airplane with five people is a lot more complicated than as a family of four. Like do we sit 4+1? or 3+2? Do we split the family across the aisle? or front seats and back seats? Decisions!
We chose Amsterdam because the Husband’s sister lives there and we hadn’t seen her and her family since they came to the States in August of 2019. The Husband and I aren’t great at vacation planning and tend to do things a month or two out. I think because I sometimes book work at the last minute, I’ve always been wary of booking vacations too far in advance, trying to keep my calendar open for work. This trip, we had been talking about for a while, and I think we booked the Air BnB last fall because I was pretty certain by then that I wouldn’t be working during Spring Break. The flights were booked in January which my mind screamed, “TOO SOON!!!” But in reality we probably would have gotten cheaper tickets if we had booked sooner. Oh well, as it was, I think each step gave us considerable sticker shock and we had to recover before we could take the next step.
We had a 5:30pm flight out on Thursday. At first, to save the cost of a cab, we considered taking the Metro to the airport since a new Metro line just opened that goes all the way there. That plan would have required us to leave at noon. My friend told me that many of the hotels by the airport offer long term parking and a shuttle to the airport, and that was way cheaper than the airport long term parking – <$10/ day vs. $14/ day
Why did I not know about this before?!?!?
So that’s what we did. Getting to the airport was super smooth, except we didn’t check and the six year old had a full water bottle going through security and had to go through again. I was surprised how things have changed and you no longer have to take your electronics and liquids out of your bag to go through the x ray machine, and you only have to remove boots, but not Crocs or running shoes.
Random thoughts on the flight:
-We had packed to be able to travel carry on only, but the flight was full, so when we checked in, the airline offered to check all our bags for free. I was fine with that. I don’t mind checking at all; I prefer to pack carry on only because I don’t like having to lug big suitcases.
-We ended up deciding to get the four seats in the middle + one single seat across the aisle. I sat with the three kids in the middle and the Husband sat in the lone seat across the aisle. I think this was the best way to go – I didn’t feel like we wanted to subject anyone else to sitting next to my kids. The 11 year old and I sat on the aisle seats of the middle section and the two little kids sat in the middle, which I think worked out well.
-I’m always worried about food and entertainment for the kids when we take trips. I had packed everyone their own snack bag and bought them all activity books and packed crayons and markers and books. I think we used one activity book while waiting for the flight and the three year old did about ten minutes of her sticker book at one point. But really all the kids just used the in flight entertainment, and the 11 year old also had her own tablet. They mostly watched movies and once in a while played games. The six year old really got into playing Angry Birds which I thought was hilarious. As for food, I definitely overpacked on that front because there were lots of snacks and drinks and meals on the flight, so a bunch of the food I packed actually ended up coming home with us a week later. I know I overpacked in the food and entertainment front, but I feel like if the in flight entertainment hadn’t worked or if the kids didn’t like the airplane food, I wanted to have a back up.
– I had forgotten that the in flight entertainment required wired headphones. I had packed them for the two little kids, but didn’t pack any for myselft. The airline did hand out earphones, but my set weren’t great. So I mostly read on the flight. I did watch about an hour of a Mrs. Harris goes to Paris, but didn’t finish it before getting to Amsterdam. I finished it on the way back – it’s a delightful movie, even when watched with bum earphones. For Christmas, I did buy the Husband this Airfly dongle that allows one to use bluetooth earphones with any earphone jack. Unfortunately I didn’t try it out until the return trip back.
-The flight itself was a direct overnight flight – we arrived in Amsterdam at 6:30am. I think I managed to get the kids to sleep for an hour or two, and so did I, but it wasn’t really high quality sleep. I don’t think the 11 year old slept at all, to be honest.
-Lesson learned – have the kids pee about an hour/45 mins before landing. I didn’t do this and just minutes after the fasten seatbelt sign went on, the 3 year old declared, “I have to go potty!!!!”
“You have to wait,” I told her. “We have to keep our seatbelt fastened, but the plane will land soon and then you can pee.”
“I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!! I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!!!” she started screaming. Over and over and over. For the twenty minutes it took us to land and taxi to the gate. If you were on our flight, I sincerely apologize.
At one point, she said, “I’M GOING TO PEE MY PANTS!!!” And I tried to get her to sit on a towel, but she refused. “I PEED MY PANTS!!!!” Loudly. Everything was said loudly. It was epic.
The moment the fasten seatbelt sign went off, the Husband took her to the bathroom with a change of clothes. Guess what? She lied. She did not pee her pants.
And so we arrived bright and early in Amsterdam. We took the bus to our Air BnB. There seem to be many options to get to and from the airport. We chose the 397 bus because it had a stop about a 15 minute walk from our AirBnB, but got off at the wrong stop and actually ended up wandering around a little bit. In my failure to plan, I did not get international data on our phone plans, so it was a bit of an aimless wander. With all of us toting our luggage. At one point, I just took the six year old’s rolling suitcase too. Everyone was a little cranky and a little tired and a little hungry, so it was kind of a drudgery of a walk. Even still, I was so excited to see my first glimpse of Amsterdam canals and bicycles. The morning was rather quiet – we discovered over the course of the week that Amsterdam is not a city that rises early.
At one point, though, I did decide to stop and ask for directions and some very nice people pointed us in the right direction. We were staying in the Oud-West, which was about a fifteen minute walk from the Museumplein where all the famous art museums are and from Vondelpark, one of the major swaths of green space.
We finally made it into our AirBnB, which featured the first of many steep steep staircases we would traverse. I was originally a little nervous about the kids going up and down the stair, but over the course of the week they got really good at walking up the stairs sideways, one slow and steady step at a time.
The AirBnB was rather spartan – one big room that had a eating area, living room/tv and two beds, and one little room with another bed. There was no kitchen, which I don’t know why I hadn’t realized that when we booked the place. But what the place lacked in amenities, the hosts more than made up for with their kindness and generosity and attentiveness. They took our dishes and washed them, and also did our laundry a couple times during the week; and – the kids’ favorite thing – the hosts gave us two huge bins of toys – duplos, trucks, picture books, activity books, pencil crayons. The kids would be well entertained.
What with it being 3am back home when we arrived, I immediately took a little nap. I knew we would battle jet lag, but I hadn’t slept much on the flight, so I needed to catch up a little bit. Mean while the kids played with their duplos and with my phone, taking some snapshots to keep things real:
While I napped, the Husband ventured out and came home with sandwiches, which we ate, and then we set out for our first adventure. (well, not counting getting lost.) I had booked us a canal boat ride for 2pm the day we arrived, figuring that it would be a nice easy activity for the first day when we might be tired. Only we couldn’t quite find the place where we were to meet our boat and missed the tour. The company was very nice and re-booked us for Sunday. At first they offered to walk us down to another part of the canal and try to get on the boat, but it was turning into a drizzly, rainy day and they said that we would have a better time on Sunday when the weather was nice.
So now we had a few hours suddenly free before we had to meet my sister in law for dinner. We decided to take a wandering route back to our AirBnB. We somehow ended up wandering down Pieter Cornelisz Hooftstraat, where all the high fashion stores were – Gucci, Hermes, Dior. It was fun to peer in the windows at all the fancy clothes. And the Cybex stroller store. So fancy.
We got back to the AirBnB and rested for an hour or so then walked to my SIL’s place. On the way, I was really obsessed with the architecture of the buildings around us – the houses all so tall and skinny had such a distinctive profile. the Husband pointed out how all the houses have these pully hooks up top to help with moving furniture in since the stairways are too narrow to bring anything in through the front door. Later on my sister in law told us that no one uses the pulleys anymore – when they want to bring in furniture, they have to hire a special lift and take out a permit because the lift will block a big chunk of the sidewalk/ road.
Also on the way, I wanted to find some kind of dessert to bring and we ended up stopping at a bakery and wine shop with the cutest name: Levain et Le vin. All of their bread is sourdough bread and I picked up a loaf for breakfast the next day as well as some pastries for dinner while the Husband got himself a coffee.
Then it was off to my SIL’s house. It was really interesting to see their place – so different from our home back in the States – much more compact and economical space-wise. They also had the steep steep stairs. My SIL had ordered pizza, so we had that and the grown ups chatted while the kids played – she has two young kids too and it was so heartwarming to see the cousins play together even though they hadn’t seen each other since 2019, and the three year old not at all. But I guess Hot Wheels is a universal language.
Around 7pm, we headed back to our AirBnb. It was really drizzling hard, and I had forgotten to pack a raincoat for the 3 year old. However, before we left, my neighbor had given us one of those ponchos that fold up super small and I had thrown it into my purse. I pulled it out and put it on the three year old. Obviously it was waaaaay too big, but it kept her relatively dry!
When we got home, we changed into our pjs and just hung out watching some American tv with Dutch subtitles. I can’t remember what it was – something on the Discovery channel, I think. Pretty soon, though, the littles fell asleep:
Around 9pm we packed everyone to bed. We were all so exhausted from not having really slept on the flight that bedtime was easier than I thought it was going to be.
So that was our flight and first day on the ground in Amsterdam. It was a little strange being in a foreign country, but also there was a lot that didn’t feel foreign. On the one hand, visually we were clearly in a different country – the architecture, the canals, the bikes. So many bikes, whizzing by. I was really envious of the speed and ease with which I saw people getting around by bike. On the other hand, everyone spoke English and we could just use our credit cards everywhere. The Husband noted that “It just doesn’t feel like I’m in a foreign country.” I agree with him. I completely see why a lot of English speakers who want to move abroad chose Amsterdam.
More recaps to come! Tell me, haver you ever been these Amsterdam?
At my current company, on the first day of rehearsal, we all go around the room and introduce ourselves, and are asked to say our name, position, how long we’ve been with the company, and one “fun fact” about ourselves. (For the record the first few answers: Diane, [Assistant] Stage Manager, since 2003.) The last time we did this, I was struck with a bit of panic over the fun fact, and ended up saying, “I have three kids and a very supportive Husband.” Kids and pets seem to be a popular topic for people’s “fun fact”. But… I don’t love the idea of my fun fact being that I have three kids. While I’m all for visibly parenting in the workplace, but it’s not the first bit of information I like to offer up. Also I struggle with identifying myself as a “mother” – one of those existential questions I have for myself in moments when I have the luxury of existential thinking.
Ironically, when I’m in a non-work environment, my fun fact often is “I’m an opera stage manager.” People seem to be really fascinated by this. However, when I’m at work, it’s not really a usable fun fact.
Anyhow, after that particular first day of rehearsal, I had this text exchange with my Husband.
Hmmmm…
Well, in an effort that my fun fact not be that I have three kids, I’ve decided to brainstorm a couple more to have on hand:
1. “Diane” is not actually the name on my birth certificate.
2. I broke the County triple jump record in my age group when I was in grade six
3. I eat almost anything except watermelon Jolly Ranchers
4. I can shuck an oyster with a butter knife
5. I have a twenty year old sourdough starter named Seymour.
6. When I was ten, I fell out of a tree and broke my right arm. As I was right handed I thought I would get out of doing school work. My parents just made me learn to write with my left hand.
7. I was one of only three Asian kids in my elementary school. The other two were a boy in my class named Preetam Sengupta and my brother.
8. I met the Husband at a contradance.
9. I still use my red L.L. Bean backpack from college.
10. In high school, there was one of those fundraisers on Valentine’s day where you could take a quiz and a computer would match you up with classmate. (Also what an awkward idea!). I was matched with my brother. He ate my match form.
11. I played varsity badminton in high school.
12. The first romance novel I ever read was called Champagne and Roses, snuck off my parent’s bookshelf. It was about this middle aged mother whose husband leaves her for his secretary so she starts a catering business and ends up with a hot French guy. (okay, this one might not be one I share at work)
13. I have six toenails on each foot.
14. I was born in Nova Scotia. Yes, I’m a Canadian. Except my passport is expired… so am I still?
15. In college, I hosted a classical music radio program at 5am on Wednesday mornings.
16. We were once investigated by Child Welfare Services. (Okay, this might also not be one suitable for work.)
17. I have a very large bass case. No bass, just the case. No I don’t play the bass.
18. I have eaten mongoose on a mountainside restaurant in Taiwan.
19. During the pandemic, I pumped and donated 657 ounces of breastmilk to the King’s Daughter’s Milk Bank.
20. My favorite number is 17 in French. I just like how it sounds.
That was actually quite a struggle. Maybe I have more in me somewhere. Or maybe I need to create more fun facts in my life. I have been wanting to learn how to juggle….
What is your go to fun fact about yourself?
The second pie is in the oven, so what am I to do while I wait, but send some hodge podge thoughts out into the world.
Also – I just checked the pie and 1) The edge of the crust is doing some kind of sad droopy thing – I had too much overhang and rather than trim it off, I thought I’d just leave it because really the crust is the best part, so why not have more. I had fluted the excess edge, but I think there was too much excess and it has kind of drooped like Dali’s clocks. It does not look good. But it will be tasty. and 2) I tried to peek to see if the rest of the crust was baking since soggy crust has been an issue of mine lately. And I thought, “That’s strange… why is the crust still so pale? It’s very white for having been in the oven for twenty minutes” And I panicked a little bit. But then I remembered that I didn’t use the clear Pyrex pie plate, but the white pie plate and all that white I was seeing was just the pie plate. So who knows if the pie crust is baking in there. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow/ today.
Anyhow, it’s been a really packed week so far. The two older kids have had very minimal school this week. Monday and Tuesday half days and today (Wednesday) completely off. Then of course tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Friday is off.
I think we all realize that the holidays are coming and we try to pack so much into the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we kept things low key last weekend. There was house puttering on Saturday, then dinner out with friends. We went to the same brewery that I had gone to earlier that week with my Mom’s Group. I don’t drink, but the brewery has firepits, so that was a plus. There were only two other groups sitting outside, which made me feel less awful about our combined six kids running around the patio.
Sunday the three year old had two birthday parties to go to, both of them outdoors in 40 degree weather. One party had chicken fingers, French fries, and mac and cheese, which I thought was brilliant for a toddler party. It was probably on the cold side to be having an outdoor party, but I figured at least it would be an opportunity to to check more boxes off my 1000 Hours Outside goal. Two birthday parties in one day might not seem low key, but they were both park parties nearby, so they were pretty easy to get to.
Then there is the issue of sleep. Or rather being tired. I’ve been feeling pretty tired lately even though I’ve been getting 6-7 hours of sleep a night. Thoughts on this:
– Maybe I’m still catching up from daylights savings having ended? And the shorter spans of sunlight certainly don’t help my lethargy.
– It’s not because I’m staying up til 2am or 3am like I tend to when I’m working. I’ve actually been really good about mindfully going to bed, as opposed to falling asleep on the couch and stumbling to my room at 3am. So yay me.
-It is partly because the three year old is not proving to be a great sleeper. I mean she sleeps like a rock for three hours at a time – you can roll her over without waking her when she is asleep. But inevitably at some point between 1am and 3am, she gets out of bed and comes to our room and climbs into our bed. Then it’s an internal battle of whether I should take her back to her own bed and spend another half an hour getting her to sleep, or if I should just give up and let her sleep in my bed. Usually the latter wins out. But she also will be up sometime around 5am yelling for breakfast. Or Milk. Full confession, the three year old still nurses to sleep. Which I have mixed feelings about, but also some degree of apathy because it seems like my feelings on the matter do not even compare to her feelings.
-Also, related to the not going to bed late … part of going to bed early is that I get up earlier. And when I’m awake earlier, I then get tired earlier and then fall asleep earlier. It’s kind of a viscous cycle. I do like the idea of being a morning person, but I can’t really be a morning lark and a night owl.
– There is a possibility that I’m coming down with something. I did have a cold sore this week that was so painful I woke up a few times. I get cold sores maybe once or twice a year – usually a combination of hormones, weather, and stress makes them appear. But they’ve always been mild. This time was pretty painful. And there’s general nasal congestion and everyone else is getting sick – we seem to be in a perpetual state of snot and cough. Makes these next five days with no school or work seem like an ideal time to attempt to keep ourselves germ free.
Two months ago I wrote about my attempts to get more sleep, which is admittedly not the same issue exactly as just feeling run down and tired. But revisiting those ideas – Some of the goals I’ve managed to do – I now brush my teeth and get into pjs when the kids do. I got a lamp for next to my bed so I’m reading more hard copy books before bed, though the occasional e-book does make it too. So now it is much easier to stumble straight into bed at 9pm after the baby falls asleep.
I have not established any kind of bedtime routine – mostly because of having to lie down with the baby until she falls asleep. So my ideal evening wind down of 20 mins yoga, 20 mins journaling and 20 mins reading hasn’t come to fruition. I have been doing 10-15 minutes of yoga in the morning, so at least I’m stretching that way. Maybe I should concentrate on 20 mins journaling and 20 mins reading in the evening.
Welp the pie is done (I hope) and I can hear the baby crying. So off to tend to that.
To finish up the recaps from our July camping trip….
The second morning once again started with a 6:30am bathroom call. This morning, after bathroom call, I actually went back to sleep for an hour while the two kids played with their cars and figurines next to me in the tent. It was a kind of hazy shallow sleep, punctuated by their small voices making car noises and creating scenarios on the tent floor. Small figurines and cars always come with us when we go camping and we get a lot of mileage out of them.
Around 7:45- I got up and made breakfast- bacon and egg wraps. Which were tasty, although I think I should have bought thick cut bacon – it would have cooked more evenly and taken up less space in the frying pan.
A little after 9:00am, the Husband arrived with the 10 year old. They had left at around 6am to get to us and the ten year old was still a little sleepy. I thought they made good time given that they even stopped for donuts.
“Did you get to use the park pass?” was the first thing I asked them.
So the whole reason I chose to come to the Shenandoah over Western Maryland where we usually go camping was because every fourth grader in America gets a free National Park Pass good from September 1st to August 31st the year they are in fourth grade. Not one to turn down free stuff, I really wanted to use the pass and we planned two vacations around this park pass. However, we didn’t use the pass on our our Smoky Mountain National Park vacation because that park actually doesn’t charge a fee. So I was eager to use it on this trip. Except then the ten year old didn’t want to come with me. I realize that $30 is a small price to pay for entry into our National Parks, but I was super bummed not to be able to use the card. (Though it ended up being moot because when I drove in with the two littles, the entry gate was understaffed and unoccupied so I didn’t end up having to pay anyway.)
Anyhow, the Husband reassured me that they did in fact get to use the fourth grade park pass and I was pretty excited about that.
After everyone got to relax for a little bit and I got breakfast cleaned up, put away, and had hauled the dishwashing water to be dumped and come back, I wanted to go on a hike. So we packed a lunch and snacks and water in our backpacks and got in the car.
I chose the South River Falls Hike. It looked really doable in the hiking book, just 4.4 miles to the base of a waterfall and back. In my mind that was 2.2 miles to the waterfall, time for playing in the water and lunch, then 2.2 miles back. I figured it would take maybe four hours – ninety minutes there, thirty minutes at the waterfall and two hours back.
It took 6.5 hours and was much harder than I had anticipated.
Most of the difficulty was due to the elevation change throughout, some 1200 feet. The terrain in spots was a little rocky to get down to the waterfall and then back up to the trail so we had to go slow and careful with the kid. Even still, there were lots of things I really liked about the hike.
We saw lots of millipedes – which the kids loved to stop for… every single millipede.
There were lots of moments to sit by the stream for a motivational snack break. (Gummy fruit snacks!)
There were rocky scrambles, one which ran over the stream and you could stand on the rocks and hear the trickle of water far below, even though you couldn’t actually see the stream.
There was running into a park ranger who talked us through the path to the base of the waterfall and answered all our questions of how they rescue people in case of emergency. I thought it was such a cool job to spend your day hiking and talking to park visitors.
There was the cool shade where we sat on rocks at the base of the waterfall and had our lunch of summer sausage, cheese, and fruit. And after lunch there was some refreshing wading.
And on the way back, we even saw some owls. It was almost magical! There is something mesmerizing about owls and their haunting call and swift noiseless flight.
Overall, the kids did okay with the hike, difficult as it was. There was a fair bit of protesting that they couldn’t possibly go any further, but the baby actually made it all but the last mile, at which point, I put her in the carrier and she fell asleep. The five year old stoically made it all the way to the waterfall and back with nary a word. He found a good sturdy stick and trudged along, stick in hand. Only afterwards did he say to me, “I like camping, but I don’t like long hikes.”
In the evening there was a fire, dinner cooked over said fire, and ‘smores. Then the Husband put the kids to bed. The ten year old decided that the tent was too crowded and wanted to sleep in the hammock. I hung a few glow sticks in hammock for her so that she wouldn’t be so in the dark. Truth be told, I was a little jealous – sleeping in a hammock seemed like it would have made for a soothing and refreshing night. Since the Husband was on kid duty and then retired soon after, I had the rest of the evening to myself. I sat by the fire, read my book and wrote in my journal as I tried to keep the flames alive as long as possible. The last log managed to burn for quite a long time and it was lovely to have a fire-lit evening to myself.
The next day, we woke up to fog and drizzle, which still seemed magical. The Husband and I packed up the campsite while the kids played. The five year old kept setting the camp chairs in a row, playing train:
The baby just tried to climb whatever she could:
On the way home, we stopped in Culpepper for lunch at a Bar-b-que place. The food did take a while to get to us, so when it became clear that the two little were feeling a little restless, I took them on a walk around the town. I feel like I need to have more tricks up my sleeve for the kids now that we are eating out more. I can’t expect them to sit still all the time in a restaurant if the service is slow and I don’t want them climbing all over things and behaving like indoor monkeys. At any rate, a walk around the block seemed like a good way to wait for the food to come. We even saw this piece of art:
And it seemed like every street we walked down was like taking a time machine back sixty years….
Eventually the husband texted that the food had arrived so we headed back to the restaurant. We ordered the family meal and it. came. in. a. garbage. can. lid. How fun is that?
The food was soooo good! When I go to BBQ, I had to admit, it’s all about the sides for me. Any place that doesn’t have collard greens is a disappointment in my book. This place not only had collard greens, but they also had hush puppies (which the kids tried for the first time and heartily approved of), fried okra and, something new to me, stewed apples. The stewed apples were so tasty, kind of like eating apple pie filling .
After lunch, we drove home, unloaded the camping gear from the car, and all took showers.
All in all, it was a great trip. I wish I could have stayed longer.
Some things that I really enjoyed about this camping trip:
Unplugging. Our campsite actually had pretty good cell service, but I needed my battery to last 3.5 days with minimal charging, so I kept it in airplane mode most of the time. I realized that this was actually a great way to limit my screen time. I would take my phone out of airplane mode three or four times a day, check my email and texts, respond to the ones that needed a response, text teh Husband proof of life pictures of me and the kids, then put the phone back in airplane mode. It made me realize that I don’t get messages of sufficient volume and importance to be checking my messages as much as I do. It was a good thing to realize. The one annoying thing was even though I had downloaded my books via the Libby app, for some reason the app wouldn’t open unless it had signal. So a couple times I had to take the phone off airplane mode just to get the app to open.
Hiking to views and to waterfalls.
Going to bed early.
Reading Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile out loud with the kids.
The hammock.
Simple meals of crackers, summer sausage, and cheese.
Seeing stars…
The show has teched and opened and closed and I’m ready for summer. The weeks of work was an intense time. Now on the other side, I am amazed a what a big push it was for us to get through those two weeks of performing a large show in the time of COVID. I don’t pretend that putting up an opera is anywhere on the scale as organizing and army or surgery – in fact we often say “It isn’t brain surgery” when things feel overwhelming. But mounting an opera is a project that takes a couple hundred people to pull off, and there are 1500-2000 people watching every performance expecting to be entertained, so it does feel like a large undertaking.
This show, though, felt particularly daunting at times. One main reason was that part way through the run, I was asked to step in at the last minute for the stage manager, bumping up from my assistant stage manager role. Stepping into someone else’s track is not always easy, and being the stage manager requires a level of visible responsibility that can be intimidating for me. But someone needed to call the show and the company asked me, so I was nervously excited to do it. And turns out, when you are calling a show cold without rehearsal, people are really forgiving when you bungle a scene shift cue and the audience gets to watch a bit of awkward stage business that they really shouldn’t witness. Hah.
Everyone was super supportive and encouraging and I really felt lifted by that support. And the chorus, our wonderful wonderful chorus, gathered backstage around the stage manager’s console at the end of the first show I called and gave me a huge round of applause. Oh my goodness, I was so touched by the gesture, my heart almost exploded from gratitude.
When I stage manage a performance, I have a little ritual where I write some variation of the following in my notebook as I prep for the show to start:
Each line is kind of like a mile marker. As the show goes along, I will write the time next to each section when it starts – Curtain Speech, Orchestra Tune, Act 1 begins, Act 2 begins, etc… At the end of the evening, I can easily calculate how long each segment of the show was because I know what time they each started. Actually, even more than “easily” because I have an excel table that will calculate the time math for me – I just input the start times of each part. Time keeping is a big part of stage management – using it well and knowing where it goes.
I read an article recently that talked about the difference between routine and ritual being one of intent and mindfulness. The article quotes Mason Currey who wrote a book called “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work”, as saying that “Rituals create and mark a transition towards a different kind of mental or emotional state.” While a routine might just be a repeated action, rituals can help focus the mind to an upcoming task. Writing the mile markers of the show is certainly routine – it’s a task that has a practical function and needs to be done before every show – but I think of it also as a ritual, something I do methodically to introduce a calm to the start of my show. There can be many unknowns, but I do know that I will look at the clock at these points in the evening and it’s helps me mentally prepare to get there.
At any rate, the first time I had to call the opera I was subbing on, I stood at the console before the show and had my little ritual of writing down the points of time that I needed to note. Then I took a deep breath and, looking at what I had written, suddenly it all seemed very manageable. This huge show I had just been thrown in charge of…. I just had to get from “[Curtain] Speech” to “End [of Bows]”. What I had to do was laid out right there in black and white. So very doable.
For as much calamity that had been thrown at our show in the days, hours, and minutes before the orchestra downbeat, I realized then that there was an end point and I just had to get there. Simple enough. Indeed, I don’t know that I could very well avoid getting there. Sure, I could not tell the orchestra to tune, but that was a very unlikely as it would probably raise eyebrows and cost a lot of money. Looking at my list of mile markers brought a kind of “ah ha!” moment for me, a realization that the end of the show will happen- there is it, written in my notebook, as if it were preordained. It was like a road map, I just had to arrive at “End bows” and my job was done (mostly) and I could go home. There was a great sense of reassurance in knowing that I just had to focus until “End Bows”.
There is a saying, “Everything will be okay in the end. And if it isn’t okay, it isn’t the end.” I think of this a lot when things get hard, or even when I anticipate things getting hard. Work in the moment, but know there is an end. There are times I will even break things down even further and tell myself that I just have to get through the next ten minutes. After I get through enough ten minute sections, I will get to “End of Bows.”
Sometimes in life, when things seem daunting, I know when the end will be – “End Bows” for example- and sometimes I don’t – waiting at the hospital with my sick Father-in-law. Either way, it helps just knowing that there is an end point, a time when this show, this task, this moment of life will be finished and I will be able to look back and reflect and move on.
The mornings hover between spring and summer, just where I like it. The temperatures are low enough that there is a slight chill, the air is dry from having released its humidity in a midnight rainstorm, leaving wet grass and the smell of rain. Yet the earth has tilted so the sunlight is early and direct, warming out faces as I walk the kids to school, and our backs as I walk home after drop off. I know that soon, 8am will be suffocatingly humid and 80 degrees, so I remind myself to savour these favorite mornings.
The other day, I made a to do list for the week. Yes, I’m slowly getting back into the habit, dumping out my brain like the linen closet and putting things back folded and neat, and maybe putting aside those tasks that are no longer useful. The week’s to do list read:
-pay bills
– sort bills from [rental property]
– figure out summer camp
– eat the peaches
One of summer’s greatest gifts is fresh peaches. Bought by the bushel from farmer’s markets, they are so plentiful and sweet, the seconds barely discernable from the firsts. Sometimes I like to go pick them myself, although prime peach season is typically August, when the weather is at its hottest and most humid, so the labor is never as enjoyable as the fruits of said labor. The boxes of peaches pile up in the house and we eat them as fast as we can, then turn to making pies and turnovers and eating them wrapped in ham with a slice of basil and also the peach shortbread recipe from Smitten Kitchen. But inevitably the we can’t eat them fast enough and I end up canning several jars of them and tucking them away in the basement.
Canned summer peaches are a present from my summer self to my future winter self. In the depths of winter, to open a jar of peaches and remember what summer tastes like is like eating nostalgia and warmth wrapped together. Even peaches that I remember being not quite sweet in the heat of summer, taste perfectly sweet when I spoon them into my mouth as I stare at the snow blanketing bare limbs in January.
Of course the kids always want to eat the peaches right away, after they have been put up. But I tell them, no. I want to save the peaches for that moment in winter when it feels like we have been in it for so long that I can’t remember what summer is like. Then, when I feel like summer is so far away, do I bring out a jar, and crack it open, unleashing glistening deep yellow mounds of edible sunshine.
This winter, though… it was unseasonably warm. I thought about my peaches sitting on the filing cabinet in the basement and always said to myself, “Nah. It’s not cold enough yet to bring them out. It surely will get colder and more miserable this winter.” And whether I was having a fit of asceticism, denying myself peaches, or whether the winter truly was a mild one, either way I now found myself mid May and the peaches still had not been eaten.
And so as we turn the corner into May, and I started to make my summer fun list, I realized that the peaches were still sitting in the basement when soon it would be time to bring home more bushels of peaches and can them for next winter. And what would be the point of eating canned peaches in August when the fresh peaches were so abundant?
So I put it on my list – “Eat the peaches”
As if it were a chore. But it’s not a chore. Quite the contrary. It’s just sometimes I need a reminder to do the thing that brings me joy.
Or also, bring the kids joy. The moment I brought the jars up from the basement, their faces lit up. “Peaches!” they exclaimed and crowded around as I popped open the jars, the vacuum sealed lids coming off with a satisfying sucking sound. Thuuuwack!
The baby, in particular, loves to drink the liquid that the peaches were canned in. “Potion!” she calls it, lifting the entire jar to her mouth and chugging greedily. It reminds me of Zero and Stanley in the book Holes, drinking centuries old canned peaches, calling it “Sploosh”.
So we are now down to a couple peach halves floating in “potion” in the fridge, and that is all that remains from last year’s batch. I don’t know what I’m saving those last two peach halves for, why my reluctance to eat them. Perhaps I’m holding on to the memory of last summer, wanting to draw it out as much as possible. Not anything specific at all, even. Just the idea of warm and sun and padding barefoot in my kitchen and the luxury of leisure time. (How strange that canning peaches, once a necessity, is now for me almost a leisure activity.) I have this irrational sense that once I finish those last bits of last year’s peaches, I will have lost last summer, released it into the ether of memory and time.
This is silly, I tell myself. Be practical. I need to clear that jar away to make room for the incoming crop of peaches. Besides I will be so sad if I hold on to those last few peaches so long that they spoil and then I can’t enjoy them at all. Perhaps practicality and planning is the only thing that can overcome my sentimentality over a bit of canned fruit. So I write it on my list:
-Eat the peaches.