The weather has been very erratic here these past few weeks. One day it will be high 70s, then next day it will be in the 40s. There was one week, when I was sure that the cool weather was here to stay – it was rainy and chill and everything seemed like it was going to take a lot of effort. And so my mind turned towards things that I like to be cozy and warm. Of course the next week, the weather was back up in the 70s and sunny sunny sunny. But some of the cozy things had already been implemented. Being cozy gives me such joy, that I thought I’d share my list of cozy things….
Cozy in the Car.
Car Blankets – My car is quite old and it takes a while for the heat to kick in, so I keep blankets in the car for the kids. They buckle up, then I tuck the blankets around them up to their chins and it keeps them cozy til the heat starts up.
A Cup of Tea – Tea in a mug to warm my hands and tea in my travel cup so that it is still warm three hours later when I finally sit down and have a sip. I don’t drink coffee, but I do drink a lot of tea, particularly when the weather gets cool. My tea of choice is the strong black stuff – Irish Breakfast, Oolong, or Lapsang Souchong. In the evenings when I wans something a little more gentle, I like Celestial Seasonings Honey Vanilla Chamomile.
Cozy Breakfast.
Oatmeal – my go to cold weather breakfast. I like it savory with soy sauce, sesame oil and a little bit of ume plum vinegar, topped with scallions, ginger and a soy egg, kind of like congee. I also like it sweet with berries, nuts, maple syrup and cinnamon.
Cozy sleep
Flannel Sheets – As much as I love the feeling of cool cotton in the summer, I love the warmth of slipping between flannel sheets in the winter. Unfortunately the Husband sleeps hot, so we don’t always put them on the bed.
Leggings and Booties – I don’t know if leggings and booties actually keep me warmer than just pants and wool socks, but I sure feel cozy wearing them. Maybe it’s a sartorial placebo effect.
A very aspirational stack.
A Stack of Books – Nothing says cozy to me like curling up on a couch, a throw blanket on my lap with a nice book to absorb me. I’ve decided this winter I’m going to read some nice thick tomes. I’ve started The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish, and it’s pretty good so far.
Cozy sweater
Sweaters and Robes – A few Christmases ago, the Husband and the ten year old got me a long hooded cardigan from Eddie Bauer. It is a blend of cotton/acrylic/polyester/wool and oh so warm and big enough to swallow me up. When I am cold, I put it on, pull the sleeves over my hands, and put the hood up and shiver. It’s like having a warm hug.
Cozy feet.
Slippers – Okay, I actually wear my wool slippers all year round, but cooler weather makes them imperative. I bought myself a pair of Glerups boiled woos slippers when the baby was born three years ago, and I had to replace them this year because I had worn holes in them. This time I’m going for the rubber soles so that I can periodically wear them outside if I need to run something to the recycling bin.
Wool Socks – along the lines of slippers… wool socks are a must this time of year. I splurged on some Bombas last year and they are everything I want in a sock. I used to share socks with the ten year old, but everyone now knows that the Bombas are only for mom.
Baking – Haven’t done much of that yet so far, but I did get a Bundt pan this year and I’m looking forward to making things in it. Tasty things that I can nibble on while I drink tea and read a book while under a blanket.
The kids had two days off school this week. Monday was end of quarter grading, and Tuesday was election day. Schools close here on election day because a lot of schools are used as polling locations. So I did get my act together and took the two younger kids on a camping overnight. The oldest had been invited to a birthday party, so she did that.
We went to Burke Lake, about an hour away in Virginia. The main reason I chose this campground was that it was close and also one could book a single night stay. Most of our usual campgrounds require a two night stay. I hadn’t been to Burke Lake before, and found it is a pretty suburban campsite; I could hear the traffic from where we were. As expected, the place was pretty quiet. I imagine it’s a very popular destination in the summer – there is a lake for boating, with a nice trail around the perimeter, and there is also a carousel and ice cream stand and a train ride, none of which was open. I was a little nervous at how empty it was at first. We were the only ones at the campground when we arrived at 1pm, and I do sometimes wonder if camping by myself as a woman is the most prudent thing. But another group arrived late in the afternoon so I felt better.
It was a pretty relaxed camping trip, as these things go. I had thought that we could hike the trail around the lake, but once I had set the tent and the hammock up, the kids were happy just to swing in the hammock and play with their toy cars. We did go for a little woodsy stroll along the part of the lake trail that came past our campground. The weather was lovely – almost 80 degrees – and the afternoon sun was golden. The trees were almost all bare, leaving such a thick carpet of leaves for us to swish through.
Autumn sun on Lake Burke.
This time of year, it gets dark so early, so I started dinner at 4pm. I also made a fire – that’s one of the kids’ favorite parts of camping. I made mac n cheese and we roasted hot dogs over the fire to put in our mac n cheese. We had ‘smores.
Roasting hot dogs for dinner.
The sunset around 5:15pm, and it was dark. I remember looking at my watch as the sun was going down and thinking, “What am I going to do – there’ still three hours til bedtime.” Well, turns out, with my kids, once the sun went down, they were ready to turn in. I’m not sure if it was the lack of sunlight, the big day, or the end of daylights savings, but they were pretty tuckered out by 6:30pm. Maybe it was all three factors. We went to the bathhouse to brush our teeth, returned to the tent to put on our pjs, and I read them two chapters from Winnie the Pooh under the light of the lantern and they snuggled into their sleeping bags – Cocoons, they called them. I stayed up to read for a little bit, and then was asleep by 10:30pm – so early for me!
I was woken up by bright bright light streaming into the tent. I hadn’t set up the rainfly on the tent this time because the weather looked to be dry and I thought it would be nice to get some air into the tent and to be able to see the sky. In the middle of the night, this incandescent light pushed past my eyelids, and I opened my eyes, thinking I had forgotten to turn off the lantern. I hadn’t forgotten – it was the moon. The moon was practically full that night. I remembered seeing it during dinner as it came over the horizon, a huge glowing white disk. Now it was directly over the tent, bright as bright can be. When I’m at home in a house, it’s easy to forget how much light the moon can produce. I could see everything in the tent in the moonlight that came through the mesh roof of our tent.
Eventually I went back to bed and woke up around 6:00am. The kids were already up – I’m not sure how long they were up, or what they were doing, but the sounds of them chattering away to each other penetrated my sleep fog. That and the fall morning chill. Even though I objectively knew the second day was going to be colder (in the mid-50s according to the weather report), I was still unprepared for the reality of it. I hunkered in my sleeping bag as long as possible, but finally faced the reality that kids had to pee and forced myself to emerge.
We had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Then I slowly packed up the campsite with a pause for some hammock time. As I was driving in the day before, my sister-in-law called and we chatted, and I said to her, “What I really want to do is laze in the hammock and read my book.” I almost didn’t get a chance what with setting up the camp, and taking the kids on a walk and then making dinner and cleaning up dinner… but this morning, I decided that I was going to be sad if I didn’t find some hammock time. So after breakfast, and before I packed the car, I took half an hour and lazed in the hammock with a book. It was quite chilly so I packed the sleeping bags in the hammock and it was a super cozy thirty minutes.
Hammock time.
After the car was packed up, we spent some time playing at the playground and wandering along another stretch of the lake trail, then we went home around 1pm since I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic. All in all a very relaxing 24 hours.
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. I buckled down and got some errands done off my to do list. Finally mailed those sweaters off. Processed more returns – the leggings I ordered from Pact did not fit. Bummer. I liked that they were of a thicker material, but I think the thicker material make them less stretchy.
I did a tie dye experiment with some old sweaters. The experiment wasn’t entirely successful – I tried a technique called ice dying where you put ice over the clothes and sprinkle the tie dye powder over it, and as the ice melts, it saturates the dye into the clothes. I had ice left in the cooler from camping, which is what inspired the project. I sprinkled the dye unevenly, so the grey sweater just looks like it was in a laundry accident – also I think I should have chosen a different colour for the grey sweater – the blue didn’t really show up. Even so, I always love the look of tie dye and I think I’ll try it again since ice dying was a pretty hands off way of doing it.
Before
During.
After
I had one very frustrating day where on the way to work, there was construction and a poorly marked detour and I spent a half hour driving around trying to get to our parking garage. Driving downtown is always super confusing – the streets change direction at rush hour and if you miss a fork, you’re suddenly in Virginia and you can’t just pull a u-turn to get back on track. (I mean I guess you could – I’ve seen people do it – but I’m not that brave.) I felt particularly defeated because I had planned to get to work 45 minutes early so I could get a run in before starting my show duties, but the detour/getting lost in Virginia ate up all that time. This wrench in my plan almost had me in tears. But got to work and decided to salvage it by running ten minutes to the Wednesday farmer’s market and getting empanadas for dinner and kimchi from one of my favorite vendors. So I guess it wasn’t a frustrating day, just a frustrating, despair ridden 45 minutes.
Yesterday, being Veteran’s Day, the Husband had it off, so we went to Glenstone Museum. It was a rainy, drizzly day, but lovely nonetheless. I had been a few months ago with my mom and cousin, and we didn’t get to see all of the grounds on that visit, so I was glad to go back. We didn’t see everything this time either, but we were moving at a slow pace. We meandered the walkways, stopped for lunch at the cafe (where we also started planning our spring break trip!) and took in some of the galleries. I don’t always understand contemporary art, but the docents at Glenstone are always willing to talk to patrons about it in thoughtful ways, which I appreciate.
The rainy walk.
Inside a Richard Serra sculpture.
Not art, just the view through a drizzly window.
Grateful this week for: -Our friends, avid campers, who loan us camp chairs and coolers. – The nice person at FedEx who helped me sort out all the various forms for shipping back to Ireland the Irish sweaters that the Husband had bought me last Christmas. Finally checked that off the to-do list. – The three year old’s teachers. We had a parent teacher conference for her today and she’s doing really well. I’m impressed by how many letters and numbers she knows. Apparently she needs to work on sharing and letting other kids be the line leader once in a while. I’m not surprised. -My car, which just just crossed 180, 000 miles and still takes us where we need to go. I probably wouldn’t drive it across the country, all the same. -A phone call from an old friend and colleague whom I worked with years ago in Colorado. She is a costume person, and had made the ten year old the cutest outfits when she was a baby. Anyhow, after we both left that company, we lost touch except a Christmas card. It was wonderful to catch up.
Hard things this week: Screen time struggles/strategies with the ten year old. We are generally pretty restrictive about screen time, but the ten year old has joined a writing club at school for National Novel Writing Month, which she seems to be enjoying. However, the school has issued Chromebooks to the students in writing club so they can work on their novels at home. There has been a lot of surreptitious screen time for non-novel writing things, and precious little actual novel writing, and I just don’t have the bandwidth to constantly monitor what she is doing. We’ve caught her with her Chromebook in bed a couple of nights too and so we’ve had blanket and dictatorial confiscation of the Chromebook – which I’m on the fence as to whether it’s the best strategy since it leads to a lot of tantrums and generally unpleasant behavior (on both our parts), but it’s the easiest tactic to implement. I think there just needs to be some kind of joint discussion about screen time and Chromebook use and expectations. Also maybe have her show us what she’s using the Chromebook for. I think right now, the parents are the enemy in the screen time battle, and I don’t like that dynamic.
Plans /Aspirations for this weekend: – Drag Queen Story Hour at the Botanical Gardens. The three year old keeps calling it “Dragon Story Hour”. I hope she isn’t disappointed. – Birthday Party at a bowling alley for a classmate of the five year old. – Work. It’s closing night! I’m a little sad. – Order a new planner for next year. I use a weekly planner and I just realize there are only six spreads left for this year. When I think of the rest of the year in terms of just six spreads, it seems like the year is fast disappearing. – Run. – Maybe a hike. Something outdoors for sure. – Think/ Plan holiday/ end of year things.
Looking forward to: -Happy Hour with my mom’s group next week. I think only one or two moms can make it this time, but it’s been a while since we had one, so I’m looking forward to it nonetheless. – This is way in the future, but our Spring Break Trip! – Another Date Day with the Husband. He took half a day off this week to work in his garden, and we spent half an hour watching Only Murders in the Building and eating chocolate bars. It felt very un-adult like. Looking forward to more like that.
What We Ate: Saturday: I was solo with the kids, so we had snack dinner – Soy Sauce Eggs, Veggies, Fruit, Edemame, crackers and cheese. Eaten on the floor while watching Thundermans.
snack dinner
Sunday: I had a matinee show, so the Husband made dumplings and cut up some veggies for the kids. They saved me some dumplings, which I ate when I got home.
Monday: Camping. Trying to keep it super simple – boxed Mac n Cheese with hot dogs and broccoli mixed in. A tip I learned from my brother is to buy the Deluxe Mac N Cheese; it come with a cheese sauce rather than cheese powder, so it’s easier to make. And then of course ‘Smores for dessert.
Tuesday: The five year old requested veggie noodle soup, so I made Chickpea Noodle Soup from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone Cookbook. It’s actually a great pantry soup.
Wednesday: I had to work so I had empanadas and dolmas from the Farmer’s Market by work. The Husband made some kind of hashbrown/peppers/egg skillet for the kids.
Thursday: This was the day that I kind of lost it and told the kids that if they didn’t empty the dishwasher, we’d have toast for dinner because I wasn’t going to dirty anymore dishes until I could put them in the dishwasher afterwards. Well, joke’s on me. The dishwasher did not get emptied in time so we had bagels and baba ghanoush, and carrots and cucumbers and hummus, and fruit. Everyone thought it was a great dinner. So much for natural consequences.
Friday: Pizza (take-out) and The Secret Lives of Super Pets, which was a pretty funny movie.
… because I fell asleep before I could hit post…. I used to write a lot of haikus here (see them here), and I thought I might try to make it a habit again. Anyhow, here are this week’s efforts.
My tooth brush, child prepped. Everywhere, toothpaste is smeared. Love amidst chaos.
Full Moon, spotlight bright Wakes me like a bulb flicked on Unexpectedly.
Fall’s brittle carpet, A cacophony of leaves. Sounds of a fall walk.
Sometimes I think of all the things that I’ll pass along to my kids – especially all the things that I want to pass along to them but will likely not ever see come to happen. I mean there’s the financial and material, but also I think about the intangible things. Whenever I think of holding on to stuff for my kids, I think of something the Minimalists said to a listener who was having a hard time cleaning out his parents’ house after their death. “You are your parent’s legacy,” they said, “not their stuff.” It’s still hard for me to get rid of things, but these words are a bit of comfort when I do chose to part with something – these bits and things are not me. But also it’s somehow more weighty to think that my legacy is something so much more lasting than stuff.
At any rate, a lot of the times as I think of what I want my little humans to learn from me, I wonder if any of the good things I want to pass along get through to them. Lord knows, the bad things do… the yelling and the petty grievances, and the bad habits – those I see in them in the most cringeworthy ways. But the good stuff? Or maybe I’m not giving them enough good fodder?
This week, while camping with the two little kids, I tried really hard not to be too busy to enjoy being out in the woods and hanging out with these two little creatures. I’m trying to not let the things that occupy my mind take up so much space that I can’t experience the things that I like about being in the tent – the air, the trees, the golden sunsets, the fire, the unplugging (though to be fair, we had plenty of cell signal the whole time so there was period scrolling and texting).
At one point, as I was trying to make dinner, I realized that I was having a good time. I was enjoying the sunshine and the woods and my kids’ antics. I paused and gave the five year old a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re camping with me. This is fun.”
He gave me back a big hug in return. I turned back to continue to make dinner.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him walk over to his little sister. His pesky little sister that not five minutes ago, was taking his sticks and fighting with him. The little sister who snatches his toys and then laughs in his face at his distress. The little sister who liked putting her feet in her face while they ride in the car. (I really should turn her car seat around…)
He walks over to her, gives her a big hug, and says, “I’m so glad you’re camping with me. This is fun.”
My heart grew a million times. Maybe the good stuff is getting passed down after all. Maybe the good stuff is the stuff that happens when I’m not even trying, but when I’m just simply loving them.
I am definitely a “last minute” kind of person – I tend to procrastinate and then finish projects just in time. I think it comes being a Questioner (of Gretchen Rubin’s four tendencies). I like to keep asking questions, wanting to have to have all the information in place perfectly before I can start a project. I used to wait until we had staged every scene in an opera to start my show running paperwork, thinking that I wanted the complete picture of the show before starting. I’ve come to realize, though, that I don’t need to have everything in place to start my paperwork- I can start my paperwork with what I know and – gasp!- adjust when things change in rehearsal.
Two things I read recently have shifted my thinking of waiting til the last minute to finish things.
The first was a recent post by Seth Godin. I really love how Godin can distill ideas down to their essence, and one of his recent posts really was an “Aha moment” me:
The second was on a blog Headset Chatter, written by a stage manager Karen Parlato. In their FAQ they answer a question about dealing with deadlines:
I like to do things right away. Stage management is all about juggling many balls. I like to get the ball out of my hands as quickly as possible so it’s over and done and I can move on to others without losing track of anything.
These two ideas really shifted my framing about workload and deadlines. I didn’t used to see the value of finishing things early, wanting my work to be as accurate and finessed as possible before distributing it. And even when I did start projects with plenty of time to spare, I found myself still working up til the deadline because I wanted to fuss and adjust and re-phrase. The work was done, but I was not done with it.
For example paperwork for backstage – all the information for the stage crew will be in the paperwork, but I continue to make slight adjustments in fits of self doubt – maybe if I adjust this margin, the crew notes will be clearer to read. Maybe if I write Stage Left rather than just SL it will be less confusing. Maybe if I put this picture just this way or that it will be clearer how the tea try is to be laid out of for the singer. The possibilities are infinite.
But my time is not infinite.
Godin’s and Parlato’s posts, helped me realize that finishing something early is not an excuse to keep futzing with it – the value of finishing something early is that that it gets it off my plate and pushes it to other people so that they can start to do their jobs. Holding on to something does not diminish my to do list. Getting things done just in the nick of time is not necessarily a virtue.
I really like Godin’s idea that those last sixty seconds can be a moment of peace before submitting something, time to savor and enjoy completing a task. It goes hand in hand with the idea that “Finished is better than perfect.” Sometimes as I endlessly change margins and adjust image sizes, I just need to tell myself to stop, and just be done so that I can celebrate having planned an executed something well.
The Husband went out of town on Saturday for a friend’s birthday party, which I was so excited about because he never takes time for himself and he has been on solo parent duty for most of the past eight weeks. So I had an entire day with the kids to myself. The plan was to keep us out of the house as much as possible.
So on Saturday, we: – Got bathing suits and kickboards. I’ve been trying to order bathing suits off Amazon for the ten year old, but none of them have fit and it’s been a frustrating, unending process. Then one day I noticed that there is a small swimwear store located near us so on Saturday, we popped in. She tried on a bunch of bathing suits and found two that fit. Hooray! I also bought kick boards (we called these flutter boards when I was growing up) for the two little kids. I’m so glad I found this store – every summer we try to buy goggles at the big chain sporting good store, but they are always out of the right size. Next summer I’m just going to come to our small local swim store.
– Then we went to a park and met up with some friends for food trucks, music, and beer. The kids played in the playground while I got to catch up with the grown ups.
three kids on a tire swing
– Then we hopped on the Metro and went to the Building Museum for The Big Build Day. Big Build day is kind of an open house where the Museum is free for the day and they have all sorts of building related activities for kids. The place was kind of a zoo and very crowded, but we got to do some fun things like sit in big trucks and use power tools.
– Then we Metroed back to our car, came home and had snack dinner while watching The Thundermans. Well, the kids watched The Thundermans while I read my book, which made for a very pleasant evening.
Then the kids went to bed and I stayed up late to clean while watching Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, which I’m finding fun, but not as good as the original series. I had thought to go to bed early to take advantage of the end of Daylight Savings, but … bedtime is still my nemesis and I stayed up several hours past midnight. I did set all the clocks back before I went to bed, so I would have the illusion of getting up earlier.
This morning started off with the baby crawling into bed to cuddle, then around 5am, she starts yelling at me, “Breakfast! Breakfast! Breakfast!!!!” She clearly did not understand the idea of falling back an hour. I turned over in bed and she eventually got out of bed and left the room. I’m not sure what happened next with the kids, but when I woke up two hours later, the kids were in the basement watching High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. As annoyed as I was that they were watching TV without permission, I guess I should be glad that they were quiet and occupied and didn’t burn the house down while I slept.
Anyhow I got up, we got on with our morning, and even managed an hour of cleaning the toy room before I had to go to work. Getting the toy room cleaned was a minor miracle. I had been starting to stress out about how messy the house was – hence the post midnight cleaning session last night. Previous attempts this weekend to get the kids to clean involved yelling, foot stomping and much exasperation in the face of their apathy towards the state of the house. Eventually I left it and this morning I decided to try again. After much infuriating resistance, I took a breath and asked the five year old why he didn’t like picking up and he says, “Because it is boring.”
Well he’s not wrong there. I always entice myself to clean by watching something while I did it; I only let myself watch Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries while cleaning. So I said to the kids, “What if I let you listen to some favorite music while you clean?” This was eagerly accepted. So I put on some Hamilton and then some Taylor Swift and we set the toy room in order. Music while cleaning is not a new or novel concept in our house, but I always forget that it’s a great inducement. Part of me thinks, “They should just pick up because I’m asking them!” That’s hardly fair to them, though. If I can’t expect myself to clean up without some music or tv show, I can hardly expect them to.
In the end, the kids did not all clean equally – the ten year old did more than her fair share, but everyone did something. It wasn’t painless, but it got done. I do feel as if we have too many toys and bits and bobs, but I don’t know where to even begin the process of weeding it all down. Part of the issue is, even if the oldest kid has outgrown something, I feel like I have to hold on to it for the sake of the little ones. I need to figure out how to cull the toy room before Christmas, though.
So we cleaned then the sitter came, I took the ten year old to swim clinic and went to work. After work, I did a grocery run for tomorrow’s camping trip then came home and the Husband had returned from his trip to New York, bearing the fattest, doughiest, bagels I had ever seen. And the Giant was out of Philadelphia cream cheese, which is a minor annoyance, but seemed large in the moment. So we had an evening as a family – one of those noisy evenings where we are all exhausted, but the kids chatter endlessly and jump all over us, but being inert on the couch is a perfectly fine response. I still haven’t made campsite reservations or pulled out the camping gear, but I think it will be fine. I looked at the website and there are still lots of camp sites open. I’ll push publish then go finish packing before I turn in for the night. It feels like a lot of work for one night of camping, but this might be the last warm spell for a while and there is still a bit of fall colour to enjoy, so while I waffled on whether or not to go camping, I think we will have a good time.
So all in all a good weekend – twenty four hours solo with the kids. The house was kind of a sty, but we managed to ameliorate that somewhat. I have decided that these one off days when I’m solo parenting, the goals are: sleep, food, family harmony, and fun. Cleaning the house is clearly not a priority.
This month I made it to 52 books read. My goal for this year is 60 books, which I think is within reach. But also, I don’t want to just speed through a bunch of short books for the sake of hitting that goal. I’ve decided I want to spend the winter wrapped in a blanket, sipping tea, and reading very lengthy tomes. Preferably in hardback. Suggestions welcome!
The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray – A Jane Austen inspired murder mystery that features the characters from Austen’s novels gathering for a house party at the house of Emma and Mr. Knightly. Marianne and Colonel Brandon are among the guests, as well as Lizzie Bennett (now Mrs. Darcy) and Mr. Darcy and their son. This book is so cleverly put together. It was a light and fun read and I really enjoyed reading about life after “happily ever after” for each of the couples. Gray has clearly thought through how each couple’s marriage plays out and the relationships she portrays feel entirely in keeping with the characters that Austen created. It was kind of like reading really good fan fiction, and I mean that as a total compliment. I will say, I felt that the actual murder plot was not entirely convincing, but then again, I don’t know that that was entirely the point of the book.
The Hate U Giveby Angie Thomas – 2017 YA novel about sixteen year old Starr, a black teenager who witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend by a police officer. Starr goes to a private prep school in the suburbs, worlds away from the gritty neighborhood she lives in, and has become adept at navigating two worlds. The novel deals with how she deals with the aftermath of the shooting, wanting to do the right thing but afraid of the fallout for her community and for her family and for her very own life. I thought this book was really riveting and I stayed up late to finish it. Clearly all the accolades it has received are well deserved. I think my one quibble was with Starr’s white boyfriend from her fancy prep school; he often comes off as the token good white guy who integrates seamlessly into Starr’s life in a White Savior kind of way.
Mother Trucker: Finding Joy On the Loneliest Road in America by Amy Butcher – Butcher, a writer and professor in an emotionally abusive relationship, seeks out Joy “Mothertrucker” Weibe after discovering her on Instagram. Weibe is the only female ice trucker in Alaska, and Butcher is drawn to her seemingly independent and bad ass life. So Butcher contacts Weibe and asks to come visit and ride along with her as she drives up Dalton Highway, a remote and dangerous dirt and gravel road in Alaska. To be honest, I thought this book was going to be a profile on Weibe, or some kind of adventure travelogue. In the end, though, the book was more about Butcher herself and her journey to turn her life around – kind of like Wild, but with Joy “Mothertrucker” standing in for the Pacific Crest Trail as the catalyst for self discovery. That aspect I found a little disappointing because I really wanted to get a deep dive into Joy and life as an ice trucker, and instead she comes across as some kind of mystical wise woman. Still, there are some great details about what it is like to drive the Dalton Highway and there is a lot of brutally honest writing in this book about relationships and abuse. (So warning on that)
The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud, PhD, and Ned Johnson – I read Stixrud and Johnsons’ book “What Do You Say” earlier this year and found their scripts for parenting really helpful. The Self-Driven Child is their first book, and I would say it focusses less on scripts, but more on the science and strategies of how a parent fits into the life of their child, namely as a consultant and coach rather than as a dictator. Their book is based in a combination of brain science and real life experience through their work as a tutor/test prep instructor (Johnson) and a clinical psychologist (Stixrud). The book is well organized with tangible action steps at the end of each chapter, which I really liked. So often parenting books are all about theory and ideas but don’t give parents concrete steps they can do with their children I made so many highlights in this book that I feel as if I should just get my own copy. Some good things to remember: – “If you act as if it’s your job to see that your child does his homework, practices the piano, or plays a sport, you reinforce the mistaken belief that somebody other than he is responsible for getting his work done. He doesn’t have to think about it because, on some level, he knows that eventually someone will “make” him do it.” Such a good reminder that being overly involved does not serve your child well. – “Kids need responsibility more than they deserve it” – this one is a hard one for me, but makes sense upon reflection. I always thought that kids earned responsibility, but the book indicates that they have to grow into it and they can’t grow into it unless given the chance to do it. – “He began to suggest to parents that they make enjoying their kids their top priority so that their kids would have the experience of being joy-producing organisms.” I forget this one a lot. I just don’t enjoy my kids a lot of the time… and that shouldn’t be their problem. I definitely need to work on this one. Kids need to know that their value is not in their quantifiable achievements. – “But you’re in it with your kids for the long-haul, and part of being a parent is standing on the sidelines sometimes so that they can return to you for a hug and pep talk before going back out there. That’s where it’s most important for you to stand. So stand tall, don’t forget to cheer, and at the end of the day, remind them that you care much more about them than any stupid test score.”
You Can’t Be Serious by Kal Penn (audiobook read by Kal Penn) – Kal Penn is known for many things, but for me he will first and foremost be Kumar from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I thought his memoir really fantastic, full of anecdotes from his time both as an actor and as an Obama staffer. He comes across as a really intelligent and thoughtful person. Because I myself went into a career that isn’t the most traditional one for Asian Americans, I always like hearing of other Asian Americans who went into non-traditional careers. What really struck me, though, was not just the anecdotes, but the really honest way he talks about being an Indian American in Hollywood. He does not shy away from calling out the racism that he encountered over and over again. From constantly being told that something would be funnier if he could do it with and accent (“What kind of accent? Scottish? Irish? Southern?” he would slyly ask.), to going up for an audition for an Indian character and the other person reading for the role being a white person in brown face, and many many more. And then, amazingly, he gets involved in politics and works in the White House for two years. The stories of his time on the campaign trail and in the Obama White House are really inspiring – full of such great details, but also a reminder of what a hopeful and decent time the Obama administration was. All in all I really enjoyed this book – it made me laugh out out, gasp with outrage, and warmed my heart.
This was a very light work week, so I tried to shake off my post tech malaise and get some life admin done. I liked Elisabeth’s comment earlier this week about only putting five things on the to do list, moreover some of those five things can be entirely routine things… I always had thought that the to do list was above and beyond the routine things I do, but putting the everyday things seem to sort of help kick start the list with some low hanging fruit. So this week, my low hanging fruit was “get outside or exercise for at least 15 minutes every day,” and “Make dinner for the family.”
On top of that, things that got checked off my list this week: – Paid the bills. One of them quite late. I need a better system. – Scheduled parent teacher conference for all three kids. I think we will have to do them online this year, which I don’t love, but I had to schedule them at times when I would have to find a sitter for the kids if we went in person. I’m grateful that we are offered both a virtual and in person option, though. – Zappos return on shoes that I had been on the fence about. -Zappos order on black shoes to try. -ordered leggings, since the one pair I currently have won’t cut it for the whole winter. -VOTED! Voting feels pretty perfunctory where I am because my county leans so heavily Democratic. Most of the tough decisions are during the primary. There were a few items that I had to do some reading up on – ballot measures (including legalizing cannabis) and Board of Education seats, which are non-partisan. Overall it took the better half of a day to read up on candidates and watch some forums, filled out my mail in ballot and dropped it off at a polling center. I used to just do early voting, but even then I would always leave it for the very last minute and on that last day the lines were always so long. I like the mail in ballot because I can take my time and fill it in while having the internet in front of me and do my research as I fill out my bubbles. Also – this time they sent and “I Voted” sticker with the mail in ballot. Not gonna lie, but for me, the sticker was a huge perk of voting in person and I was always sad not to get one when voted by mail. -used this website to measure myself for a bra. Which is just step one to my bigger goal of actually getting new bras. -Hosting a friend for dinner. I had forgotten how nice it is to have a friend over for dinner. Moreover, a friend that doesn’t judge your messy, post-Hallowe’en house that is never quite picked up, and who also engages with your kids in real conversations.
Things that weren’t on a list, but I’m glad I made time for: -Getting my car an oil change, and then running part of the way home. I think I only ended up running 1.5 miles out of the 3 miles between home and the mechanics, but I did run all of that 1.5 miles in one go, which is the longest stretch I’ve run since I started running a year ago. The car was probably 900 miles overdue for an oil change, and when i went to pick it up my mechanic said, “You’re still driving that thing?” “Yeah,” I said, “I hope I get to drive it for a while longer.” And he said, “People love their Subarus. Well just keep bringing it in to me for oil changes regularly and it will last a while longer.” The car is 179K and 19 years old. The Husband tells me that it is worse for the environment than getting a new car. -Walk with friend to a cafe for lunch then walk home. Good conversations, an iced chai, lunch and fall colour. Seems like a pretty good fall morning. -Trip to library. I initially went to pick up some holds, but then started browsing and before I knew it, I had an armful of books to bring home. I do a lot of reading via the Libby app, and I forget that there is something so wonderful about browsing the library, pulling books off the bookshelves, reading the jacket, flipping through them while inhaling the smell of paper and past readers. eBooks just don’t that that softly worn community feeling that hard copy books off a library bookshelf do. – Post library trip to Botanical Gardens where I sat for an hour and scrolled and read two chapters of a freshly borrowed book in 70 degree weather. This felt very indulgent.
A book, a bench, a warm fall day.
-Walk with Husband. One day, I suggested to the Husband we do something in the scant half hour between him getting off work and the school bus pick up. We decided to go for a walk at a nearby trail where we took our picture at the selfie stand there:
Things that didn’t get checked off my to do list: – make/ formulate a plan for camping next week. – sweater return from last year. Last Christmas, the Husband had bought me some Irish wool sweaters, but they were too small. There is a 365 day return window, but the customs forms to return them are so daunting that I haven’t done this yet. -Mail thank you present to a friend. – Some financial things that I just need to square away, but which is tedious and requires a bit of research and persistence and gathering of information. This is under the category of important but not urgent, so I procrastinate. But I know if I procrastinate too much it will fall under the category of “urgent” so I just need to get over that hump.
Looking forward to: – The end of Daylights saving! My kids are naturally early risers so I hold no illusion that I will get another hour of sleep. What really excites me about the clocks falling back is that it will no longer be dark outside when I take the ten year old to her 7:15am piano lessons. -Date day next week with the Husband. In September I went to Glenstone Museum with my mother and cousin and liked it so much that when tickets were released for this month, I immediately snagged two tickets for November 11th, which the Husband has off as it is Veteran’s Day. The kids will be in school, so we will have a child free date day! – On the issue of dates- we are having a new sitter come this weekend to watch the kids while I’m at work since the Husband is going to be away. I’m excited for the potential of finding a regular sitter. We haven’t hired childcare help since the baby was six months old. I never know where to begin with hiring help, so I waffle and don’t do it. But I knew we would need a sitter for the kids this weekend so I asked the moms in my mom’s group and someone recommended this person. I hope it works out because the Husband and I need more date nights. -Two days of no school. The kids have two days off school next week. One day is an end of quarter planning day for teachers and the next day is Election Day. I know it’s a strange thing to be excited for two days with the kids at home, but ever since they all started at school I’ve missed having adventures with them.
Something I read this week that made me think: I found this blog post from 2009 by Arts Administrator Adam Thurman “An Open Letter to Arts Administrators” very inspiring (h/t to Butts in Seats, a very thoughtful blog about arts administration and how the arts fits into the lives of everyone.) Thurman presents some thoughts and advice on how arts administrators, often an invisible presence and often taken for granted, need to stand up for themselves. Thurman’s post is from 2009, but it still feels really relevant, especially in the post COVID world when we are seeing a lot of attrition in the arts world (and I’m sure many industries). Now I’m not an arts administrator and I’m not really an artist, so I do feel like I straddle this line between creating the art and producing the art – that is to say developing an environment in which people can bring art to stage, and being part of the art itself. I think people on both sides of the equation are burnt out and need change, but change is hard in an industry drenched in tradition and convention. Yet, as Thurman writes: “It doesn’t have to be like that. I know you’ve probably convinced yourself that all the garbage you deal with is just the cost of being in the field. It isn’t.” Also this thought: “This thing you love, the arts . . . it is your world too. It’s your world just as much as it belongs to any poet, any dancer, any actor.“ This is a good reminder – I think, as a stage manager, I often feel like what I do is in service of the product onstage, but I need to remind myself that I am also “the talent”. I might not be a big opera star, but I am a person brought in to do a very specific thing and the “service” portion of my job does not negate the “arts” portion of my job. I do this because I believe that opera should be presented for an audience. I don’t do this just to be a cog in the opera machine. I think what struck me the most about Thurman’s article is his insistence that you can love working in the arts, believe passionately in what you do, but also make a living wage and have a good work/life balance. He really challenges the idea of suffering for one’s art.
Something amazing: While grocery shopping the other day, I wandered into the “British aisle.” This is where I get my sub-par winegums. But also on the shelf was:
Now I have never seen a Coffee Crisp in a grocery store in the US so this was pretty special. I immediately texted the Husband. He asked if I bought some. I said no because the Coffee Crisp we brought back from Montreal two months ago was still sitting in our shelf. That was a bad move, though. When the Husband popped in after work, there were none left.
Something beautiful. The foggy weather continues, and this morning the fog was so thick I had to drive super slow. Fog is such a pain to drive through, but it is so fleetingly beautiful.
What We Ate:
Saturday: Opening night. I had a salad from the work Canteen. The family ordered sushi.
Sunday: I can’t remember, though I do think it involved scrounging through the fridge and a bit ingenuity.
Monday: Hallowe’en and I had to work. I think the kids had wings and candy at our friend’s house. I had leftover sushi.
Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. I made carnitas in the slow cooker, finished off under the broiler. We ate this with lots of toppings: red cabbage slaw, picked red onions, guacamole, salsa, cilantro. The carnitas recipe was adapted from the cookbook Taco Loco, even though the recipe called for roasting in the oven for four hours, I had to go to work, so I threw it in the slow cooker, and it turned out perfectly.
Wednesday: Warm Winter Vegetable Salad with Halloumi. From this Bon Appetit recipe. This was a really simple and tasty recipe. Good way to use up the squash. Basically toss squash, cabbage, onions together with olive oil and Aleppo pepper (I just used paprika and chipotle pepper). Roast on high heat for 20 mins. Add cubed Halloumi and torn up pieces of pita. Roast another 15 minutes util the pita is crispy. Garnish with mint and a drizzle of red wine vinegar. Enjoy.
Thursday: Curry Noodles and Terriyaki veggies from the Bad Manner Cookbook. Also some pan fried tofu alongside. Vegan.
Friday: Pizza and Movie, I’m guessing? I had to work so had leftover curry noodles for dinner.
I had drafted this post on what we ate while camping in the Shenandoahs this summer, but never finished it. So when I thought about maybe taking the kids camping next week when school is closed, it seemed like a good time to finish this post in anticipation of more camping food.
I spend a lot of time before camping and during camping thinking about food. Constantly figuring out when and what we are going to eat takes up 90% percent of my mental capacity while out in the woods. Camping makes Maslow’s hierarchy of needs very real for me. After all, keeping the kids fed is probably 95% of keeping kids (at least my kids) happy. And happy kids make happy campers.
When I meal plan for camping, I think about what might be easy to eat, require low amount of prep, but also tasty. Tasty is important. Spending three days in the woods is a hard sell for the kids if the food isn’t tasty. The challenging meal is always dinner. Breakfast is usually oatmeal or cereal, with one morning being something that involves bacon. Lunch is sandwiches. Dinner is the big meal. Dinner also has the potential to be the most fun too, so I like to keep it interesting and novel.
The other big challenge I find for meal planning while camping is to make sure we eat enough vegetables and fruit. Most food that will keep and that is easy to pack tend to be carbs or protein, things like crackers, bread, peanut butter, cheese, canned tuna. I have a fear of people being constipated, so I want to make sure they eat more than just carbs and protein. To that end, I try to pack a variety of fresh fruit and also veggies to be eaten raw, crudité style. Years ago, I realized that a veggie side could indeed be something as simple as cut up raw carrots; a veggie side didn’t need to be cooked. That was game changing in terms of how I thought of incorporating vegetables into a meal.
When we camp, I generally cook on a Coleman Camp Stove, and one night I will cook over the campfire. The camp stove is very easy to use and almost like being at home. Cooking over a campfire is very labor intensive (thank goodness for the luxury of modern kitchens!), but it is a special camping experience.
The food prep for camping involves lots of lists and shopping and prep. The night before we leave for our trip, I do a lot of food prep to make things easier when we get to the campground. I wash and cut fruit and put it into Ziploc bags so that it is simple to eat and we don’t have to deal with the trash of stems and cores. I make trail mix. I prep ingredients for foil packets for one dinner – parboil potatoes and chop and marinate veggies. This time I also made muesli and energy balls.
Here is my chicken scratch meal planning/ shopping list:
Here is what we actually ate for a three night camping trip:
Day 1: Dinner – summer sausage, cheese, Triscuits, sliced apples. This was the night that we got in and I didn’t finish setting up the tent until almost 8pm. So I wanted something easy, fun, and filling.
Day 2: Breakfast – Meusli/Oatmeal with milk. Lunch – Tuna wraps, apples, veggies (cucumbers, sugar snap peas, carrots) and Hummus Dinner – leftover “turkey chili” eaten over Frito chips. Dessert – Almond Jelly with canned fruit. -For the tuna wraps, I mashed canned tuna with avocado, sprinkled it with Everything but the Bagel seasoning, layered on some cheese and we ate it wrapped like a burrito. So simple and tasty! -Almond Jelly was an impulse purchase at the Asian grocery store. It’s one of my favorite desserts, a jelly dessert that tastes like almond extract, eaten with canned fruit cocktail. It doesn’t require refrigeration to set since it is made of agar not gelatin, and this made it an ideal camping dessert. This was my first time bringing it, and I’m on the fence as to whether or not I would bring it on future trips – it’s an easy shelf stable dessert, but it don’t know that the rest of the family likes it as much as I do and we had a lot of it left over. -The “Turkey chili” was the leftover filling from the zucchini boats we had for dinner the night before we left, basically ground turkey sauteed with black beans and a jar of salsa. I had read the camp meal idea of eating chili directly out of bags of Frito corn chips, and thought that might be fun. But in reality, I was a little wary of the mess of eating directly out of a bag, seeing as how we were in bear country and all. So we just had our chili and Fritos in bowls.
Lunch!
Mango jelly with canned peaches.
Day 3: Breakfast: Bacon and egg breakfast burritos. Mango Lunch: Summer Sausage, salami, cheese, Triscuits, apples, and carrots. Dinner: Cooked over the campfire: Shrimp foil packets, Sausages. Baked Beans,. Bagged Caesar Salad. ‘Smores for dessert. -We don’t eat a lot of bacon at home – I find it messy, plus it’s not the healthiest food. Despite that, I always bring bacon on camping trips. I cook up the bacon then fry the eggs in the leftover grease. -Lunch was on the snack-y side because we took it on our very long hike, so I wanted something that we could pack easily but also eat easily with our hands. -The shrimp packets were: potatoes, zucchini, corn, peppers, onions. Sprinkled with cajun seasoning. I packed the shrimp separately and assembled the packets at the camp site – on foil packet I put some kind of oil (usually butter or bacon grease) and then layer the veggies, shrimp, and some sausage. Some people say to assemble the packets at home but I find that makes things soggy especially since we weren’t eating them til the third night.
On the fire: Foil packets and baked beans and sausages
Day 4: Breakfast: Cereal and pastries that the Husband had brought with him.
Snacks that I brought. (Snacking is a very important part of camping): -Trail Mix – I like to make my own. I use mixed nuts (the Costco roasted unsalted nut mix), M&Ms (sometimes peanut ones), dried fruit (cherries, raisins, cranberries), pepitas, sunflower seeds, and pretzels for a bit of salty tang. – Fruit. Apples, grapes, mango. I like mango because it keeps well without refrigeration and feel special so the kids are excited to eat it. – Welches fruit snacks (Berry blend!) Also used as a bribe/ treat when the kids were getting tired on hikes. – Shrimp chips and seaweed rice crackers. Basically I go to the Asian market and see what looks like it would be fun and crunchy and savory. – banana chips – String cheese -energy balls – I made this recipe from Pinch of Yum for pecan pie energy bites. The rest of the family didn’t care for it, but I really liked them. -jerky – turkey and beef.
The MVPs of this trip: -Tortillas. I like the whole wheat tortillas from Trader Joe’s. In the past, I’ve always packed a loaf of bread for lunches, but I think I now prefer tortillas. They don’t take up much space to pack, they are dense, and I don’t have to worry about them getting crushed. -Avocados, barely ripe. Avocados were great as a vegetable option, but also I mashed up avocado and used it instead of mayo mixed in with canned tuna for lunch. Really tasty. – Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel Seasoning. I don’t bring a lot of herbs and spices when camping; mostly I just pack salt and pepper. I’m really happy that I tossed the Everything But the Bagel Seasoning in the bin at the last minute – it was an easy pop of flavor for a lot of things – tuna salad, breakfast wraps. -Honey. It’s the only sweetener I bring and I love that it is so versatile. I mostly use it to sweeten the oatmeal and also to make Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches.
Other favorite camp meals (These I didn’t make on this trip, but I have in the past and I like them and they are very easy to make): -Ramen. It is very versatile, but one of my favorite methods: I pack some miso our soup base with ginger and curry powder. In a separate container I pack diced onions, carrots, cabbage, whatever other veggies I like. At the camp site, I boil water, toss in the soup base/ginger/curry. When that is boiling and dissolved, I add the veggies and boil for a few minutes, then at the end I add the Ramen noodles. -Mac n Cheese. Kraft makes a version where the sauce is already premixed so you don’t have to deal with the cheesy powder. -Salmon – wrapped in foil and easy to cook over the fire, though ought to be eaten on the first night. – Hot Dogs. cooked on sticks over the fire. Usually eaten with canned baked beans. – Dehydrated backpacking meals. These aren’t necessarily the tastiest, but there is a lot of novelty in pouring hot water into a foil packet and having things like Mushroom Stroganoff emerge. They’re also good for keeping for the last meal of the trip since they don’t need to be kept in the cooler.
Well, that’s a big brain dump on how and what we eat while camping. I’m always on the look out for other food ideas to eat while camping! Currently we car camp, but I have dreams of going backpacking one day, and that is a whole other food ball game.
I was talking to a dancer in rehearsal the other day about onstage mishaps. She was telling me about a moment during the last show we worked on together, when she was in the middle of a huge fight scene, and her skirt fell off. She couldn’t get it re-fastened, and spent the rest of the scene clutching her skirt to her body while trying to scratch someone’s eyes out.
Hearing her story brought back many memories. I’ve definitely had my share of onstage mishaps:
-There was the time that I was doing a show and a giant chalkboard was supposed to fly in from above during a crucial moment of a scene. Well, we had been doing a different show the night before and in order for the set pieces of that show to fit, they had to fasten the giant chalkboard from my show off so that it wouldn’t swing. Welp… after the last show, the crew forgot to untie it for our show. So when I called the cue for the Giant chalkboard… nothing happened! There the baritone is standing with a giant piece of chalk, looking up, wondering if this huge piece of scenery is going to come in, all the while singing this very fast French patter music. The baritone, who is honestly one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with, was so confused and a little bit angry.
-One show a the soprano was supposed to sit in a chaise to sing her big famous aria. Well in the scene previous, another character was thrown into the chaise in a fight, and the force of him collapsing in the the chaise shattered it. Afterwards he told me that he tried to figure out how to put it back together while staying in character, but it was futile. No one was going to be sitting in that chaise. The soprano ended up singing her big aria about love and life leaning against a desk.
– There was the recital I stage managed, of a husband and wife opera singing couple where the husband, who wasn’t feeling very well, walked offstage in the middle of their duet. “I can’t,” he muttered to himself, leaving his wife and the pianist standing on stage and the audience completely befuddled. We took a quick fifteen minute pause. The wife and the pianist looked through all the music they had with them and cobbled together a solo recital program. It still ended up being an evening of beautiful music. The husband and wife singers are no longer married.
-There was the time when the clarinetist for a show thought that the performance was at 7pm when it was at 2pm. By the time we realized he was missing he was too far away to come in for the show, so the conductor and the pianist re-orchestrated the entire show to cover for the missing clarinet.
– Last spring, when I had to step in and call the show for a colleague, I accidentally left the lighting channel turned off during a crucial moment. (The lighting channel is the headset channel that I use to talk to the light board operator. Usually I have different channels to talk to different departments so that people don’t have to listen to all the different departmental conversations at once.) Anyhow, I left the lighting channel off accidentally, so when I called for the stage to go dark so we could execute a scene shift, the light board op couldn’t hear me and didn’t take the light cue. So the stage did not go dark, and the audience got to witness the somewhat awkward sight of the crew coming onstage to push scenery around.
Luckily these incidents did not involve injury, just lots of awkwardness and a bit of fast thinking of how to triage the situation.
As I was talking to the dancer about her skirt incident, she mentioned that her boyfriend had come to see the show and he said he thought it seemed like she was holding on to her skirt awfully tight. We had a good laugh about how sometimes things happen onstage and the show isn’t perfect. It’s very very rarely perfect, in fact. Often even though it is mortifying or stressful at the time, it makes for a good story afterward. She said that she felt bad that her boyfriend didn’t get to see the perfect show.
“You know,” I told her, “It’s live theatre. That was just the show that they got that night.”
I think that’s one of the beautiful things about live theatre – it’s not something that is to be experienced the same way over and over again like a movie might be. Of course we aim for consitency, and for safety’s sake that’s the goal. At the same time, things happen, things that you can’t predict, even though you can learn and prevent them from happening again. (putting an extra stitch in that skirt hook, writing a Post-it in my book that says, “Lighting channel ON”…) Friday night’s show is not going to be the same as Sunday afternoon’s show, and that’s okay. For Friday night’s audience, that is the show that they get to see; that’s the unique experience that they get to have.
And as I said that to the dancer, I realized that this is true of life too. We can plan and plan and anticipate events, but sometimes things happen, and this is just the moment/day/month/life that we get. It might not be what we rehearsed, but it’s still can be a very fine moment.
