Weekly recap + what we ate: Snow, snow, snow, and show!

This past week was pretty mild, but what a snowy, snowy week we hadthe week previous! I have to say, after having absolutely no snow last year, it was a bit of a shock to have so much snow last week. Of course, still not as much snow as in other parts of the country, but certainly what qualifies for a lot of snow here – maybe 3-5 inches.

The quick version:
-Monday was MLK Day, so no school for the kids. I did have to work, so the Husband was home with them.
-Tuesday: Snow Day!!! Schools were closed, and the building where we rehearsed was on a delay. Also, annoyingly, County summer camp sign ups opened at 6:30a am. So at 8am, I was on the phone with work re-scheduling rehearsal while at the same time on my computer trying to register the six year old for summer camp slots. The Husband worked from home.
-Wednesday: another snow day! Although the 4 year old’s preschool was open. Let me tell you – she loves it when she’s the only one who gets to go to school. Again, the Husband worked from home.
-Thursday: Everyone got to go to school. HOOORAY!!!!
-Friday: Snow day! Again. I had to be in at work around 2pm, so I took the morning shift with the kids and the Husband went in to work. He came home around 12:30pm.

So yup – a grand total of ONE day in school for the older two kids.

In amongst all this – I opened a show and closed a show. I would say I also teched a show, but the process was so quick, I would barely count it as “tech” – just one day of rehearsal onstage. The show was a program of three newly commissioned 20 minute operas. It’s something we do every year and I love participating. There is such excitement about presenting premieres of new works written by young composers and librettist. One piece in particular was so quirky and fun – it takes place in a world after humans are extinct and the characters are microplastics and a tardigrade. I had to google tardigrade and now I feel that much smarter for knowing what a tardigrade is. (If you, like me, didn’t know, it’s a small microscopic creature that can live in extreme conditions and survive anything. They look like little bears. Apparently there’s an Aquanots episode about them.)

So putting up a show combined with a snow week was kind of … a lot. But at least I got to go to work. The Husband’s three day weekend stretched into a five day weekend, and he should get a medal for being home with the kids for all that time.

Things that worked this tech period:
– prioritizing life and work things. I didn’t have an assistant for this show, so I had to really focus on what was important to getting the show up. There was one moment in particular that stood out for me when I declined a meeting invite. It was just a 20-30 minute meeting, and normally I would think, “It’s thirty minutes, I can squeeze that in.” But I decided that, no, actually I’m stage managing a show without an assistant – I need those 20-30 minutes for myself or I won’t get my paperwork done and I will be stressed out – the meeting can wait. It was a bit of a lightbulb for me, to be honest – to be able to say, “That isn’t a good time for me, can we re-schedule?” I have no bones declining meeting when I have to be somewhere else – ie. “I’m only available until 3:30p because I need to pick up the kids.” But somehow, saying, “I can’t do that because I need to finish my paperwork” I don’t know – that had never occurred to me.
– Not worrying about things being pretty. Look, like most stage managers, I love nice paperwork – I love charts and diagrams and running times all lined up. But you know, ultimately getting the information out correctly is the most important thing. So yeah, there was some paperwork that had a mistake and I decided that I’m just going to correct that with a Sharpie rather than try to open the document on my computer and change it. Why waste the paper or my time?
-Packing food, particularly leftovers. I always pack food, but it’s especially helpful because this theatre is farther away from the staff canteen than the other theatre I worked at. I think three out of four days last week, I had leftovers in a tortilla for dinner. Perfect thing to eat efficiently.
-Four Color Frixion Pen. Frixion Pens are one of the best new inventions for stage mangers. Well, at least this stage manager. My favorite is a four colour Frixion pen in black, green, red, and blue. All those colours in one barrel so I can colour code cues in my book without having to pull out another pen. And also the ability to erase cues when things change. Amazing.
-Riding to work with my work bestie. When I’m in tech, my social life suffers and I miss seeing friends. Which is why I love that one of my good friend works with me and we get to ride to work together and talk about life and work and all the things at Trader Joe’s that I miss buying.
– Realizing I’m the stage manager. I have always been more of a self-effacing type of stage manager. It’s not necessarily a good thing. But twice last week, people have said to me, “You get to decide; you’re the stage manager.” Whoa what??? Right. I get to tell people that I want them at a meeting. And, this was the big moment – I get to decide that it’s okay that I wore my snow boots all day because if it’s between taking the time to change into my black shoes and not getting that one last thing done, versus just keeping the damn snow boots on but getting the thing done – I’m going to keep my snow boots on. And the world didn’t end. I mean I don’t think it’s an open invitation to be cavalier and dress unprofessionally, but … in the scheme of things – it’s okay to keep the snow boots on.
-Taking time to go sledding. Last year I bought a sled. Then it didn’t snow. Bummer. So I was very determined to take the kids sledding this year when the snow hit. You know, if it was a choice between taking the kids sledding and making the paperwork pretty – I chose sledding. On Tuesday, I told the kids that if they wanted to go sledding, we had to leave the house by 9:30am and we managed to do it. We drove to the local elementary school where there is a nice hill and went sledding for 45 minutes.
(Funny side note story -while sledding, we ran into a kid that the 12 year old knows from school, and he said snow days at after care were the best – the aftercare company was still providing care that day because the buildings were still open – because you got to play dominos and then after lunch, the after care folks would take all the kids to the hill and give them each a pizza box to go sledding. Doesn’t that just sound like the height of childhood memories?)

So we only have one sled – the other thing is a plastic tub that we use as a water table during the summer. It works great!

Then on Friday, the same thing. I told the kids that if they wanted to go sledding, I would take them, but we had to be ready to go by 9:30am, and again, they were! And honestly, I would have been really disappointed if we hadn’t gone. This time, we also took our neighbor’s kid with us. (I firmly believe in being a village and if I don’t have to be at work until 2pm then why not take an extra kid with us so her parent can have a few hours to work? Plus the kids always love having other kids around and they other family takes our kids sometimes in the evenings too.) I took a few runs down this hill this time in the sled which was really fun, and I thought ahead and brought a Thermos of hot chocolate with us, a lovely treat once we got done sledding.

Looking back on that list, what struck me is that a lot of what made the week go well on my end is that I made very mindful choices about what was important to keeping me going and everything else could be subpar or just dropped. There is a culture in stage management (and theatre, and really, I’m sure a lot of other industries) of pushing yourself and letting work drain every last drop that you have to give. It doesn’t need to be that way. I need to do things in a way that leave me mental margin, so that when the important things come up, I have the bandwidth to deal with that. Even things like taking my kids sledding – being able to step out of the job and concentrate on, “What can I do to make memories with my kids?” – it puts me in a better mood at work because I know that if nothing else, we had 45 minutes of joy that morning. I feel more like there is a bit more balance to me. It relieves a bit of the mental load of wondering if my kids’ are having a good day and the guilt of not being home at bedtime – because you know what? They at least had a good morning and I feel like there’s a bit o (I do still have a lot of guilt and struggle over the fact that the Husband does 95% of the parenting when I’m working and I know it’s a lot to put on his plate… I need to work on how to achieve balance when there is no balance.)

Hopefully writing those “things that worked” will help me remember them next time I’m in tech. Which won’t be until May. That’s a little wild for me to realize that I don’t have a show to work on for a long stretch.

Fun Family Activity – We went to a concert by Elena Moon Park. Park is a musician who reimagines folk songs and children’s songs from around the world, mostly from East Asia – yay Asian representation! I had heard her at an outdoor concert two years ago and I really loved her music so when I had a chance to hear her again, I was really excited to hear her again and take the kids. During the concert, the kids were kind of clingy and they didn’t participate in any of the clapping games or hand gesture-y parts, and I was worried that they weren’t liking it. But afterwards, they were singing bits of the concert, so I guess they did enjoy it after all.

Other nice things this week:
-The six year old reading Dogman to his little sister.

– Dropping the 12 year old and her friend at voice lessons and then going for a walk and re-discovering the Glass Forest. The Glass Forest is a really neat little bit of forest where someone has hung bits of glass and metal and what not from the trees to make a series of sculptures. When you walk through it, the wind knocks the metal and glass together and it’s like walking in a windchime. It’s a little creepy, a little magical. I was on a walk while the 12 year old was at her voice lesson and I happened upon the Glass Forest. I had come here years ago, on some kind of mission to find hidden gems of DC. This definitely fit the bill of “hidden gems” but I had forgotten about it in the years since, so it was a nice surprise to find it again.

-Okay, I feel super pretentious recounting this, but it was such a sweet moment – after sledding on Friday, as we were enjoying our hot chocolate and taking in the snowy views, the six year old says, “Mommy, it looks like a Robert Frost poem!” Lest you think the six year old is some kind of genius budding English scholar – he knows exactly one Robert Frost poem. We have an illustrated version of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” – and the cover did indeed look like the scene before us:

…miles to go…

-And this made me laugh – The Husband and I stayed up late to watch the football game one night. And the 12 year old tried to convince us to let her stay up too. The reason? it was not because she was a huge footballs fan. No – it was the Kansas City game and she wanted to see if she could catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift. We sent her to bed, though I did take a picture of the tv when they showed Swift during one moment.

Current woes – Homework. The first grader has started coming home with homework and he is very reluctant to do it. I alternate between threatening/pleading/cajoling/bribing/etc. him to do it, and just saying “F*ck it! It’s first grade. If he doesn’t want to do it, why should I spend energy getting him to do it?” Then I have a tiny panic spiral about how I’m not setting him up for success and I go back to threatening/pleading/cajoling/bribing/etc. This is not where I want to spend my energy. So truth – it usually only gets done 50% of the time.

I’ve grown very hands off with the 12 year old’s homework. This is not some bold parenting choice. This is just lack of energy. At any rate, she has told me that many of her teachers don’t believe in homework (Great! They should meet the 1st grader’s teacher!). So it is entirely possible that she doesn’t have any homework. I for sure only very rarely see her do homework, and her grades keep coming back solidly average, so I guess she is doing what she is supposed to be doing, whether or not it is homework. As someone whose parents were very involved in my academic progress, I’m feeling a little bit like I ought to care a little bit more.

Grateful For:
-The Husband having the flexibility to handle all the snow days.

-All the super talented people I work with. I know I say this every time, but I work with amazingly competent and supportive people. Everyone knew that I was working without an assistant and there were so many offers of, “What can I do for you?” I guess this is another thing that made last week good – when people offered to help, I let them. I let someone else check the sign in sheets, I let someone else buy me a Coke to get through one long day. I let someone else start rehearsal when I couldn’t make it quite in time after dropping the 4 year old at school following a delayed opening. There is no room to be a martyr here and I’m glad I don’t have to be.

-How beautiful everything looks blanketed in snow. I know living in snowy weather is not always easy or ideal, but it sure is pretty, and I always feel lucky that I get to see it. There is nothing like being cozy inside with a cup of hot tea (or cocoa) while watching the world being buried in snow and silence.

-And also -grateful for snow plows and snow shovels so I can get safely to work. And an all wheel drive vehicle.

-The twelve year old’s friends for coming to celebrate her birthday. We had six kids over to belatedly celebrate the twelve year old’s birthday, with three of them spending the night. The next morning we had waffles and bacon and fruit and then a group of them went to see the new Mean Girls movie. It was a pretty hands off affair for us. We helped them make pizzas, then gave them the run of the basement. I did go downstairs and turn off the tv at 12:30am to a bit of minor protesting. Afterwards, the twelve year old said to me, “Thanks for turning the tv off. I’m really tired and I would be even more tired if you had let me stay up all night.” Wow. That’s a nice bit of self awareness there. Anyhow, I’m glad that her friends came over and that she had a good birthday party.

Looking Forward To:
-I signed up for a slot at Career Day at the 12 year old’s school. I went back and forth on whether or not to sign up – I think I have a pretty fun job, but it’s also a very seasonal job (for me – there are people who do this full time), and I don’t know if non-full time employment is really what Career Day is about? Oh well. I’m nervous – what am I going to talk about for thirty minutes??? But it’s good to do new things, particularly things that scare you a little bit.

-Lighter work load and time to focus on house things. The two big projects are to figure out what to do about my car and moving forward with getting window treatments for the living room. Both projects carry a lot of mental and emotional stress. There’s also little projects like cleaning out the pantry and linen closet. And I really want to label the spice jars on our spice rack. Who knows if I will get that all done, but good to have aspirations.

-Listening to more of this audiobook – narrated by Julia Whelan. Julia Whelan is an amazing audiobook narrator. This book itself has some questionable plot holes and devices that normally would not appeal to me, but Whelan does such a great job that I’ve been sucked in. I can’t tell whether I would like this book if I read it vs. listened to the audiobook.

What We Ate:
Saturday: Parmesan Mint Pasta. The Husband cooked because I was at work. The kids had requested mac and cheese (from the box), and the Husband said this looked more interesting and made it instead. Surprisingly tasty even though it was cold when I ate it after getting home from work.

Sunday: Scavenge. Sundays we usually try to eat down the fridge. I think there was frozen tortellini with red sauce for the kids. Not for dinner, but at lunch I had salt and vinegar stir fried potatoes, to which I added julienned golden beets. A friend had given me a bag of beets from her produce box because she didn’t like beets, so I was looking for ways to eat them. I actually ate some of them raw too – the beauty of golden beets is that they don’t stain your hands deep purple-red.

Monday: Funny story. Before I left for work, I told the Husband that there was tofu in the fridge and he should use it up. Later that day, he texted me asking if the tofu was in a red lidded container. I said, no the tofu is shrink wrapped, still in it’s own packaging.
<I put that in the dinner. > he replied. <It melted.>
Then, I realized what was in that red container.
<That was feta> I texted him.
<Lol!> he writes back. <It is still feta. L said hmmmm that’s smooth, dad!>
So I guess for Monday, they had kung pao feta for dinner. With noodles.

Tuesday: Tofu stir fry. For reals this time.

Wednesday: I made vegan gnocchi soup, a recipe that I’ve made many times because the family loves it. I actually made all of it before I went to work, except the gnocchi and coconut milk – the Husband added that before he served it.

Thursday: I’m not sure what the family had for dinner. I had a ktichen sink sandwich – pickles, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, avocados, mustard. It was quite messy to eat and now that I think of it – I could have just mashed all that into egg salad and it would have been less messy.

Friday: I had leftover curry eaten in a tortilla wrap at work. The family had waffles.

Saturday: Pizza, make your own as this was the sleepover night. And there was lots of soda and chips involved. But also carrots, cucumbers, and apple slices.

Sunday: Again – scavenge for dinner. The kids had hard boiled eggs and half and avocado each. I’m sure there were other veggies and fruits in there too. I had kimchi friend rice and golden beets pan fried on the griddle. I feel like this is my go to Sunday scavenge dinner – kimchi fried rice and whatever other veggies are in the fridge.

Christmas Movies 2023 – Hallmark and such.

I will say, I think they are getting more inventive and less predictable with these movie posters.

A snowy weekend! What better time to recap my 2023 Hallmark Holiday movie binge. As I was out shoveling the front walk yesterday, I thought, “This is one part of winter that never makes it into the Hallmark movies- the backbreaking tedium of shoveling the front walk over and over and over again. Why do I never see anyone shoveling the front walk in a Hallmark movie?” Well probably because the movies are all filmed in July and no one can convincingly shovel snow in July in Vancouver. Also on that note – where are the piles next to door of wet boots and winter coats and hats and mittens?!?!?!

The New York Times had a really fun article (gift link) about Christmas rom coms in which their reporters analyzed 424 Hallmark and Lifetime movies to see how formulaic they really were. No surprises here. We all know the answer is “extremely formulaic.” But really, the article is full of fun tidbits – like did you know that the most popular name for a Hallmark/Lifetime female lead is Emma and male lead is Jack? If you’ve never watched a Hallmark holiday movie, just read this article and you’ll be covered. But then you wouldn’t get to see all the cozy sweaters and fake snow for yourself! Also the comments on this article are GOLD.

Here are two of my favorites:
“My wife and I both enjoy these movies, but she has one of the most interesting aspects of it: how many coats can each actress wear given they arrived in their small town with a small carry-on bag. It’s hilarious. Usually 7 to 9 coats. Don’t get us wrong. We love the coats. It’s just hilarious to watch.” I WONDER THIS TOOOO!!!!

“Good research. One datapoint you seemed to have missed is those most popular male lead actors are exclusively Canadian. All of them. Sometimes in an effort to find the most “all American” person you can, you end up with a Canadian.” HAHAHAHAH

Before we get to the Hallmark – our non-Hallmark Holiday viewings this year:
-Spirited, which I think has now become a family “must see”. And the kids play the soundtrack on repeat for much of December.
-Noelle, our first time watching this Anna Kendrick movie about Santa’s daughter who leaves the North Pole in attempt to right some wrongs. I thought this was fun, girl power version of Elf.
-Elf. Classic which we watch every year. Though, to be honest, this was the first time I didn’t fall asleep before the end and whoa… it was so interesting to see the ending with Santa in New York and all that – I’d never seen that bit.
-The Man Who Invented Christmas – about Charles Dickens and writing A Christmas Carol. Surprisingly funny.
– It’s a Wonderful Life. Another of our must see classics.
-Meet Me in St. Louis. Ditto.
The family also watched Candy Cane Lane, the new Eddie Murphy movie, but I was at work that night. Apparently it was fine.

On to the Hallmark stuff. As I was drafting this, I realized I saw twenty movies this year, too many this year to go into one post – so this is post #1 of Hallmark movies.

Ice sculpture Christmas (2015): An aspiring chef teams up with a childhood acquaintance to enter an ice sculpture contest.
My catnip: This was recommended by Elisabeth and I love movies about super niche things like ice sculpting.
My take: This movie had the formula down pat – all the right rom com beats at all the right times. It’s definitely a product of early Hallmark movies in it’s blindingly white casting.
The ridiculous: Okay, any time there’s a movie where two people first meet as kids and then recognize each other years later is going to get an eye roll from me.
My favorite bits: The lady who plays the head chef, Chef Gloria, was pretty great, I thought.

A Timeless Christmas (2020) – 1903 business man travels forward in time to present day, is confused, causes confusion, and meets a lady who is in charge of the historical preservation of his estate.
My catnip: Time travel romance.
My take: I thought this one was fine – not the best time travel movie; the period parts looked a little… unconvincing.
The ridiculous: Well, time travel…
My favorite bit: This is a bit of a spoiler, but there’s actually a poignant part when the business man is angry at his 1903 fiancée for eventually marrying someone else, and then realizes that she found a man to love an have a family with after all and that he couldn’t begrudge her that. It was super sweet.

Mistletoe and Menorahs (2019) – Recommended to my by a Jewish friend as a pretty good Hannukah-ish movie. Christmas celebrating girl (is she Christian? Unclear…) needs to learn about Hannukah to impress her boss and get a big raise. Jewish boy needs to learn about Christmas to impress his girlfriend’s father.
My catnip: anything that expands the diversity of the Hallmark/Lifetime Holiday movie scope.
My take: This was cute. The leads were engaging – I especially liked the male lead because he wasn’t as slick and perfect as a typical Hallmark romantic lead.
The ridiculous: I don’t know, but letting the non-Jewish girl light the menorah at a company holiday party seems… well let’s just say I don’t imagine that’s really something I see happening. I could be wrong, though.
Favorite part: making latkes. It definitely made me want to try to make latkes.

Laughing All the Way (2023) – Comedy club faces closure if they can’t raise money so they decide to put on a variety show/gala. One of their employees, an aspiring comedian, gets a now-famous comedian who got his start at the club to headline.
My catnip: Let’s put on a show!
My take: Okay, this might be horrible of me because I did genuinely think this was a cute charming movie, but… the lead was played by the same actor who played the Jewish guy in Mistletoe and Menorahs, which I had just watched the day before. And I just kept thinking, “He doesn’t celebrate Christmas!!!” I feel like that was kind of an unreasonable reaction, but there you go…
The ridiculous: The big show is going to be presented on Christmas eve. Who goes to shows on Christmas eve? Also – it’s a comedy club, but the jokes aren’t funny.
My favorite bit: The chemistry between the two leads was adorable.

A Paris Christmas Waltz (2023): Lady quits her job to become an amateur ballroom dancer and goes to Paris with her Pro-dancer partner. Romance ensues.
My catnip: Ballroom dancing, stars of the musical theatre stage (Matthew Morrison of Glee, but also of The Light in the Piazza which I listened to constantly this summer on my commute), European locale
My take: This one was pretty bad, to be honest – the pacing and plotting was clunky, and the acting was pretty wooden – like you know how some actors just seem like they know they’re in a cliched cheesy rom-com? This was one of those movies. There was one moment when Matthew Morrison started singing and dancing with so much charm and heart, and I thought things would get better, but then they didn’t.
The ridiculous: I don’t know a lot about ballroom dancing, but some of her rehearsal outfits didn’t look practical.
My favorite bit: the aforementioned singing and dancing by Matthew Morrison.

A Biltmore Christmas (2023) – aspiring screenwriter is tasked with re-writing a classic 1950s holiday movie. While doing research she is transported back in time to the filming of the original film and encounters one of the film’s stars.
My catnip: time travel, period piece, Star Trek alumni (Jonathan Frakes from The Next Generation!!!!)
My take: I LOOOOVED this movie. I think this is right up there with last year’s Ghost of Christmas Always as my favorite Hallmark movie. Okay, where to begin – time travel movies always have that nice note of impossible yearning, which I love, the settings and costume were beautiful, the leads had so much chemistry, and the plotting and pacing were so well done. And I so very much want to see the real version of “His Merry Wife”, the film that is getting remade.
The ridiculous: Well, again, it’s a time travel movie, so there’s that. Also – I always think with these movies when a person from the past ends up in present day – “How is he going to get a social security number?”
My favorite bit: The opening, which is played as a trailer for His Merry wife. And of course the end. I might have gone a little misty-eyed at the end.

Christmas in Notting Hill (2023) – American woman goes to England to visit her sister and meets soccer super star who is in the midst of a career crisis. Well, the American is also in the midst of a career crisis too.
My cat nip: foreign local, men with accents, stars of 1990s television (Sarah Ramos from Parenthood – does anyone remember what a lovely show that was?)
My take: This was fine, but there was no real conflict in the relationship. The American and the English soccer star liked each other from the beginning and there was nothing really standing in the way of them, so there was a real lack of tension in this movie. On the other hand, if you’re looking for all the standard cozy Hallmark Christmas tropes, this movie has them in spades. I would say this is a great movie for having on in the background to infuse the air with Christmas spirit.
The ridiculous: Soccer star’s mom makes a living selling swag with her son’s face on it. Seems a little unethical?
My favorite bits: okay, to be honest, I watched this really late at night and might have fallen asleep through parts of it. The two leads are charming, though.

Holiday Hotline (2023) – After a career crisis, British chef goes to Chicago for a break and ends up working at a holiday turkey hotline. She fields a call from a single dad trying to recreate his late wife’s Christmas turkey for his daughter. Simultaneously, she keeps running into a friend of her neighbor and sparks fly. Guess what? It’s not really a spoiler to say that the single dad and the neighbor’s friend are the same guy!
My cat nip: Single fathers, cute British accents, pseudo- Shop Around the Corner vibes, niche activity (Holiday cooking hotlines!)
My take: I thought this one was really cute, maybe my second favorite holiday movie this past year. I’ve always loved listening to the radio program Turkey Confidential and it makes a great premise for a meet cute rom com. I liked the way the story unfolded, predictably, but also with some nuance.
The ridiculous: Okay, some of the questions that callers called in with about their turkeys were hilarious and I hope no one ever asked in real life.
My favorite bits: The way that the movie handled the “hotline” scenes were, I thought, really well done. It wasn’t just a split screen effect – it was something cozier and quite skillful.

Christmas Island (2023) -Career driven private pilot is forced to land her clients – Los Angeles based toy manufacturers and their kids – at small Nova Scotia Island when she hits severe weather. She verbally spars with the air traffic controller, but then gets to know him in real life when she and her clients are stranded for several days.
My Catnip: A Hallmark movie set in Canada! Also Andrew Walker is one of my favorite Hallmark actors – I’ll watch any holiday movie he’s in. Also Rachel Skarsten, who plays the pilot was in The Royal Nanny last year, and I liked her too.
My take: The Nova Scotia location was kind of refreshing in a Hallmark movie, and I liked the storylines of how the various members of the family find their way to something fulfilling.
The ridiculous: No one seemed terribly Canadian in this movie. I can’t quite put my finger on what made me say this, since I’m sure there were a lot of Canadians in the movie. (Both the leads are Canadian.) But there was nary a ketchup chip in sight!
My favorite bit: The part with the Christmas Eve tribute to loved ones that had been lost, featuring a Christmas tree made from lobster traps. I might have shed a tear.

Mystic Christmas (2023) – Globe-trotting animal behavioral specialist goes to work for her best friend at her marine animal rehab center in Mystic, CT. She reunites with a one night stand/best friend’s brother, a homebody if there ever was one.
My catnip: Stars of musical theatre (Patti Murin, who plays the best friend, starred in Frozen the Musical.)
My take: This movie was pretty enjoyable, though low on external conflict, having, instead a lot of existential soul searching while enjoying Christmas settings. I liked that there were several different minor plotlines, to help keep things moving along. And the seals were pretty cute.
The ridiculous: What is it in the world of Hallmark that people have big exciting job offers that always start the day after Christmas? I get that not everyone runs on the same calendar as I do, but… it seems a little unbelievably inconvenient.
My favorite bit: There is one scene in which Patti Murin wears the most amazingly snuggly sweater. I loved that sweater. Also there is a book flood in the movie. Seems very hip and trendy, but it was fun to see a series of scenes where they go to the book store, buy books and then sit around and read. I don’t know what it was about the sound design, but the sound of those pages turning was just so perfectly cozy. Weird thing to love?

Well, that’s half the Hallmark/Lifetime movies I watched during 2023 holiday season! I’ll be back with a recap of the rest of them next week!

I know we’re over halfway though January, but did you enjoy any Hallmark rom coms this year?

Weekly recap + What We ate – First weeks of 2024!

Rainy day rainbow!

Two weeks down, 50 more to go until next year.

The first week of January was a pretty chill week – the kids went back to school, I started working on a new show. My mother was here, but then she got sick so we did not see as much of her as we would have liked.

And then this past week has been a rainy rainy one here. Maybe snow this weekend? The week has not gone as I thought it would – a lot of rain and water, including some water in the basement of my parents’ rental property, derailing some plans. We went over with towels and tools, to clean up the water and see if we could see where the water was coming from. The basement had flooded a couple weeks ago, and at that time we thought the water was coming from a clogged outside drain. We cleared the drain, pulled up the flooring and the carpet. Then the rains came again and we were wrong about the source of water, clearly. So more phone calls, more clean up. We were at Home Depot at 9:30pm buying a wet dry vac. Along with six or seven other people. But we are fortunate in that we have the time and money to deal with these problems. I read somewhere that if you have the money to deal with a problem, it is not a problem. I try to remember that.

And now I’m battling a cough and congestion, which is making me super dried out and negatively affecting my sleep. On the one hand, I’ve been so exhausted that I’ve gone to be before midnight most nights (which is early for me!), but on the other hand, I’ve been woken up by frequent bouts of coughing and a super dry mouth so even though I’ve been getting more sleep than I normally do, it hasn’t been really great sleep. But perhaps this is a good sign to myself that I can go to bed before midnight if I want to. It’s that thing bout priorities, right?

The schools closed early on Tuesday because of the rainy weather. The communication from the schools hit our inboxes at 8:30am, just as we were getting ready to head for the bus. Luckily the first part of the week was pretty flexible for me, so I was able to pick up the kids. I had intended to work from home after pick up, but my friend called and said that the voice teacher our kids saw had openings in the early afternoon, so we could move our evening lesson to the afternoon if that was better for us weather wise. So spent the afternoon shuttling the two girls to voice lessons. A bright spot was that we stopped for Boba on the way home, and I’ve discovered the joy of hot boba tea! As in Boba in hot tea. Brilliant and warm and cozy! Boba tea has always been a cold drink for warm weather so I never thought about having it hot.

The weekend before was a nice mix of kids’ activates and house projects.. We had the 11 year old’s first basketball game, then we decided to go get dumplings for lunch from our favorite dumpling house. The restaurant has been undergoing some renovations and the newest addition was a boba counter! Woot. They had a really tasty Mango Pomelo Sago Smoothie which was a nice blend of fruity beverage and and a variety of chewy toppings, with a bit of sour bite from the pomelo. The 11 year old ordered it but didn’t really care for it, so I got to enjoy it. Yay!

Since it was a rainy rainy day, I decided to spend some time purging our book collection. We have a linen closet that we filled with books since we have a linen closet in our bathroom and didn’t actually need another linen closet in the house. We jokingly call it our library. I’ve been determined to pare down our bookshelves, so I took everything out of the library and went through each and every book. It was hard! Ultimately, I only came up with one small box of books to be taken to the donation pile. I had had grand thoughts of bags and bags of books, but came well short. I made a pile of books that I still have yet to read, some of which I’ve been carrying around for almost 20 years. Making my way through some of these books is one of my goals this year. I managed to confine all my books to one shelf of our “library”, stacked three deep. (I do also have a small pile of books up in my room, in addition to the stack of books from the library by my chair in the living room. )

Library culling – phase one.
The TBR pile. I think I’m going to start with My Name is Lucy Barton and East of Eden.

The book project took all weekend, while at the same time the Husband took down Christmas. Between the books everywhere and the storage boxes for the Christmas stuff, one had to tread carefully around the house.

Sunday we continued our book and de-Christmasing project, but we also had agility class for the 4 year old and then skating for the 4 and 6 year old. Since skating lessons also come with passes to open skate, we stayed after lessons to do some extra skating. I bought a book of skating passes for myself too so that I could go skating with the kids. It’s fun now that both kids can skate very independently – I can actually feel like I’m getting some active movement in when I skate with them since I don’t have a child clinging to me on the ice.

Sibling skaters!

I might have overbooked us for kids’ activities for this first quarter, but since I’m light on work and can drive carpool, it seemed like a good opportunity to sign kids up for things that they wanted to do but which would be logistically hard for us to do when I’m working evenings and weekends. On the docket:
11 year old – piano, voice lessons (she’s been asking for a while so we started these last month), basket ball (rec league and skill development work out – she’s playing basketball 3-4 times a week right now.), swimming, and religious ed classes.
6 year old- piano, skating lessons, religious ed classes. He mentioned wanting to do coding class, and those are offered as an after school activity so we might do that. Also sewing classes next month. (I asked him what he wanted to learn to do and he said he wanted to learn to sew!)
4 year old – agility class, skating, and trampoline classes. The trampoline classes are mid afternoon, so I’m taking advantage of my lighter work schedule to get her to these. I have such mixed feelings about enrolling her in full on gymnastics – probably my own baggage from having done it before – I think she would be very good and enjoy it, but I have a lot of trepidation about gymnastics as a toxic environment and also it being a dangerous activity. Probably something I need to unpack for myself….
And then also for the grown ups – I’ve enrolled in watercolor classes and the Husband signed up for a semester of teaching ESL. I’m really excited that we’re both taking time to pursue something outside of the daily grind of kids and work. The rest of the year is looking to be really full for me work-wise, so I want to take this time to lean into the “life” part of work/life.

Also – speaking of activities – Summer camp registration has started and it is majorly stressing me out! I have a tentative work offer so I know when we need to have coverage. The summer camp provided by our after care was already full when I checked in the first week of January. That would have been the easy option since the 6 year old has lots of friends there and it’s not too expensive. So I guess we’ll be quilting together summer care for him – that’ll probably be a project for next week. The oldest will probably have a combination of theatre camp, basketball camp, and doing nothing around the house.

Random new skill learned. I figured out how to do a fishtail braid! Even though the fishtail braid had been explained to me before, I never could quite do it. A few weeks ago, the 11 year old borrowed a book on braids from the library and wanted me to do some of the braids from the book in her hair. So I gave the fishtail another try, and I think I got it! I love how tiny detailed it looks. It does take more time than a regular three strand braid, though. Yay for learning new things.

Two Podcasts at the right time for me:

This episode of Radical Candor: “Podcast Season 5, Episode 27: “Your ‘Nice’ Workplace Culture is Fraught With False Harmony” I’m newly in a position at work where it is now part of my job to have feedback sessions, and as someone who strives to provide a kind work environment, I want to be positive in feedback sessions – but is that useful? Where is the line between feedback on how one does something vs. micromanaging someone else’s style? This episode talks about how being nice can be counterproductive and even toxic, and it was good food for thought for me when thinking of how I want the culture of our stage management team to work.

This episode from The Puberty Podcast: Consequences and Discipline with Tina Payne Bryson. I’ve been struggling with how I react to the 11 year old (well, now 12 year old)’s moments of … well, tween-ness. I thought this episode was really great for reminding me that part of my work as a parent is to help my kids figure out how to “life”. Payne Bryson points out that the word discipline comes from the Latin word for “learning”. One thing I really love about the Puberty Podcast is that it gives me actual things to say, and one great phrase from this episode is: “I know that you know that X needs to happen. What’s your plan?” I love that the phrase allows the kid to realize that you know they can think for themselves. It’s a great episode.

Grateful for:
–The Return of my Rain coat. Back in November, I got home after the last performance of my fall show and realized that I had left my rain coat at the theatre. I was so frustrated! I had finally splurged and purchased a good quality raincoat and now I had gone and lost it. All December I had a replacement raincoat in my online shopping cart, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend another $130 on a raincoat, when I had been so stupid as to have lost my original one. Luckily I had a windbreaker that I could use, but it wasn’t long like my raincoat and it didn’t fit as well. Anyhow, my first day back at work after the new year, I walked into my office and there, outside my office was my raincoat! I guess the costume crew had found it when they were loading out of the theatre so they sent it back to the costume shop/rehearsal studio. Amazing! I felt so lucky – I got my coat back just in time for the rains to start.

–Past me for putting my keys in a safe place. I always put my office keys in the same pocket of my purse. I hadn’t been to my office in almost three weeks, and as I was walking up to the door, I reached into that pocket and pulled out my keys. It’s such a small thing, but I’m really glad that past me is so consistent about putting keys in the same spot so I can find them even after two weeks of not being in the office.

–Hand me down baby clothes. The Husband has a coworker who just adopted a baby so I gathered some baby clothes we still had laying around, and bundled them up to pass along. I have to e honest – I’ve been having a hard time getting rid of the baby clothes. We aren’t having any more kids, but I have so many cozy, sweet memories associated with the baby clothes that it’s been hard for me to let go. Anyhow, as I was pulling together clothes to give to my Husband’s coworker, I remembered how most of the clothes that we had when our kids were infants were hand me downs from friends and acquaintances. How lucky we were! It made me a little wistful to pass along the baby clothes, but I’m glad another little baby will get to wear them.

–The 11 year old, who is now 12! Speaking of baby clothes… This week we celebrated another birthday – it’s hard to believe that we have been parents for 12 years. We celebrated by going to Indian Food and, as is tradition in our family, she got to choose a breakfast cereal (she chose Kellogg’s Smart Start). She’ll have a sleepover party next weekend, since I was working this weekend and didn’t think it fair to have the Husband solo parent a sleepover with 5 tweens. I’m so grateful for this big-hearted, kind, observant, sympathetic, creative person who loves to read, draw, play with her siblings, and make messes in the kitchen. She teaches me so much about patience and listening. I had made a cake for her, but I was lazy so I just oil and floured the pan, rather than lining with parchment as I usually do. So when I tried to turn the cake out of the pan, half of it stuck and it fell apart. Bummer. And then I had to go to work and didn’t have time to deal with it or try to patch it back with frosting. We ended up just eating it with whipped cream when we got home from the Indian restaurant, which was probably just as well since none of us likes frosting that much.

the newly 12 year old and her sad cake! Why is she wearing maternity ward blanket around her neck??

Looking Forward To:
– We’ve booked plane tickets to visit my brother in California for Spring Break! We haven’t been to California since pre-pandemic. I always feel bad that my brother comes to visit us at least once every 18 months or so. Of course he only has one kid, so it’s cheaper for him to come to us, but still…

-Speaking of travel – I finally sent off my passport for renewal. Yay. Looking forward to getting that. I really hope my grandfather in Taiwan stays healthy until I get my passport back.

-Getting through birthday season. I always think I should plan something social for January, but then I realize that two kids have birthdays so we have to plan those, and that is enough planning for me. We haven’t really figured out the logistics of the 6 year old’s party, so that might actually happen in February. He wanted a Chuck E. Cheese party again, but upon further probing, we realized that he just wants to play the games – the actual birthday yay! part with the person in the mouse costume actually freaks him out. So I think we’ll just take a couple friends to Chuck E. Cheese to play games and then take the out to our favorite dumpling for lunch. I think the idea is have him plan his perfect day and take some friends along too.

-Tech and performances of my current show. Another short project, but even still, short projects require a lot of the same amount of work as longer projects. But… balls get dropped (in life and in work.) Some might re-frame these dropped balls as prioritizing… It certainly is an exercise in that. Anyhow, on the docket for my free day to prep for tech week:
*boil eggs (so I have easy protein on hand)
*plan my outfits for the week
*meal plan – figure out which days I can prep dinner before I go to work and which the Husband can cook. Also think through what I can bring for dinner.
*re-schedule the 4 year old’s tumbling class
*stock up on fruits and veggies so I have healthy things to eat
*baking for quick breakfast options to grab on harried mornings.

What We Ate:
Monday (New Year’s Day): Pizza (take out) and Holiday Road (cute Hallmark movie.)

Tuesday: Chili, which the Husband made.

Wednesday: Broccoli Spoon Salad, (mostly) from the New York Times. This was a great salad – farro (the original recipe was for quinoa, but we had farro in the pantry), broccoli, pecans, apples, and cheddar. The original recipe also called for dried cranberries, but I didn’t have those. Mix up a Dijon mustard vinaigrette to go over it. I think they call it a spoon salad because it has all the good stuff you can eat it with a spoon, and it doesn’t have lettuce which requires a fork. Super easy and tasty recipe.

Thursday: Leftover Chili from Tuesday.

Friday: Lentil Soup – from the Good Housekeeping Instant Pot cook book. A quick and easy recipe before basketball practice. The family was definitley mixed on this recipe, but I told the kids that lentils were really good for your body and good for the environment and they decided that was an okay reason to eat it.

Saturday: Pizza (Take out) and Sing. I had forgotten what a good movie Sing was. Such a good movie!

Sunday: Leftover day. I had Brussel sprouts sauteed with kimchi. We had been gifted a huge stalk of Brussel sprouts last month and hadn’t touched it. Those things laaaaaaast, though. This week I started sautéing Brussel sprouts for breakfast because I was determined to finish the stalk. I think the rest of the family had leftover pizza from the night before.

Monday: Miso Mushroom Ragout from Hetty Liu McKinnon’s Tenderheart cookbook. Tasty, but it doesn’t actually make that much sauce so I added a bunch of extra mushrooms.

Tuesday: Roasted Salmon, Cesar Salad (from a bag), and Israeli couscous salad. This dinner came together surprisingly quickly given that the salmon was still mostly frozen when we started. The couscous salad was really tasty – full of feta cheese cucumbers, parsley.

Wednesday: White beans in the Instant Pot (New York Times recipe), served with toast and gochujang Brussel Sprouts (again from Tenderheart) with rice. The Brussel Sprouts used up the last of the stalk. I kept some brussel sprouts without the spicy glaze for the kids. Their loss – it was really good. toast and rice seems redundant, but the 6 year old wanted to rice to go with his Brussel Sprouts, so there you go.

Thursday: Indian food take-out.

Friday: pizza (take out) and Stargate SG-1. The oldest came back pretty late from basketball and there wasn’t time for a full movie, so I looked up good tv shows to watch with kids and Stargate SG-1 came up. The kids have been really into the Mandalorian, so I thought another sci-fi show might be up their alley. I though the story telling was really good, but the show is definitely dated. At one point, the oldest turned to me and said, “Why are there so many white people on this show?” And there’s all sorts of sexist stuff going on. I’m mildly interested in seeing the rest of the series (and there are something like 10 seasons), I don’t quite feel that invested quite yet.

Saturday: Parmesan mint pasta – a Mark Bittman recipe from the NYTimes.

(I wrote most of the above t this morning, but didn’t publish before having to run kids to all their activities. The day ended up being sunny on one horizon and grey on another, with rain in the forecast. I had planned to go for a run while the kids were at skating lessons and decided to chance it, even though it seemed like we were minutes from rain. I hadn’t run in a while and I didn’t know if I would be able to fit in a run this week since I would be at the theatre, so I wanted to get one in. I dropped the kids at skating then took off outside. I got a few steps into my run and I heard rather than felt something start pelting down and I thought, somewhat peevishly “Oh man, my one chance to run and it’s going to rain on me!” But then I realized – it wasn’t raining, it was snowing! Big fluffy flakes. “I can run in snow!” I thought. Snow isn’t as wet as rain – it floats down and kind of just dissipates, as opposed to rain that just drenches and gets into my bones. So I just kept running and breathed the cold, fresh air and watched the flakes come down fast and sideways. It was actually pretty cold – in the mid 40s – so I didn’t run too long – just 20 mins with a 5 minute walk. Nonetheless, I’m so glad I decided to stick it out. It turns out there’s a lovely trail next to the skating arena, so fitting in a run while the kids skate might not be a bad way to get my run in.

Hope everyone is staying cozy and safe!

Books Read November and December 2023

I feel like for being so busy in November and December, I got more reading done than I thought I would. Thank you, audiobooks and commuting! I finished the year having read 51 books – which is fewer than last year, but I also had a lot less time off from work this year than last year. The past two months have been mostly lighter books.

Thank You for Listening written and narrated by Julia Whelan – Novel about an audiobook narrator finding her way in life. I loved this book. I had debated between reading it and listening to it on audio, and Engie had such good things to say about the audio that I went with that version and do not regret that choice. I want more books read by Julia Whelan now. And the book itself was also pretty great – I laughed out loud many times while listening. I see this book billed as a Romance, and while there is a great love story, I think there is so much more going on in this book for Sewanee, the protagonist, than just finding love. The book abounds with complex and loving relationships, the details about life as an audiobook narrator are fascinating to me, the Italian audio engineer is indelible in my mind. This book was just so satisfying.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer – It took me two years, but I finally finished this book. I had first heard of Robin Wall Kimmerer when she was a guest on the podcast On Being. This is a pretty dense book. Not dense as in thick and tome-like, but dense in that every essay in this book required so much concentration from me. I would finish one essay and then feel like I couldn’t really digest another one. So I would say this is a book to be read slowly, one essay at a time. (Or go find her interview on On Being, if you don’t feel up for reading this book…) There are so many threads in this book, but a lot it ties back to the idea of nature and the natural world and learning from a world that gives and gives. And how humans take and take, but we don’t remember to listen to the earth or to give back to it. This book really impacted how I talk about nature to my children, though. I mean, I don’t think I used to talk about nature too much to my kids, but after reading this book, I’ve come to feel that it is important to point out the beauty and brilliance and benefits of nature to my kids so that they also foster an appreciation for the natural worlds and don’t take it for granted.
Some quotes I highlighted:
“Maybe we’ve all been banished to lonely corners by our obsession with private property. We’ve accepted banishment even from ourselves when we spend our beautiful, utterly singular lives on making more money, to buy more things that feed buy never satisfy. It is the Windigo way that tricks us into believing that belongings will fill our hunger when it is belonging that we crave.”
Yes, do I really need more things? I wrote in my notes, after reading this passage, “Now I feel guilty about wanting that dress.” I don’t think the point is to make people feel guilty for their consumerism, but rather for them to think about what “need” really means and what “wants” really are.

“If all the word is a commodity how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become.” – from the essay The Gift of Strawberries – a reminder to not take the earth for granted and to treat natural resources as a gift. There is a lot of railing against capitalism in this book. As is probably to be expected.

“Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion – until we teach the not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object. […] If an a maple is an it, we can take up the chain saw. If a maple is a her, we think twice.” What do we teach our children about the world we live in?

I Should Have Honor written and read by Khalida Brohi – Brohi is a Pakistani activist who advocates for women’s rights and speaks out against honor killings in Pakistan. Her message and mission is an important one and there are parts of her book that were so sad and horrifying. I think, though, I kind of wanted less of her personal story and more about the history and impetus for honor killings. Granted this is her memoir, so the book is of course mostly about her journey – and it is really an incredibly brave one – but I think I wanted more of an insight into the country and culture she was from.

All The Right Notes by Dominic Lim – This book was about Quinto a piano player and composer in New York whose music teacher father wants him to come home to put on a show to raise money for his high school music program. And his father wants Quinto to convince Emmett Aoki, a famous movie star and his child hood friend/crush, to perform. Reconnecting with Emmett sends Quinto’s world into a tailspin. I’m always intrigued by romance novels (well, really any novel) set in the theatre world and with Asian characters. Not all books get theatre life right (or right compared the my reality, which is, admittedly just one perspective), so sometimes I just find them annoying, but I like to read them anyway. I thought this book was fine. The writing is funny in parts, awkward in others. The description of Filipino food made me want to look it all up and then order some. Overall though, the book wasn’t terribly memorable for me.

The Chiffon Trenches written and read by Andre Leon Tally – Tally was a fashion journalist and Anna Wintour’s right hand man at Vogue. Reading this in conjunction with Braiding Sweetgrass was interesting, because fashion is such a material industry. This book is full of juicy inside stories of the fashion world. Tally’s descriptions of clothes were so vivid and several times I looked images up because I just had to to see for myself the ensembles of which he wrote. This book made me want to be stylish, yet also made me realize how even though fashion can be a lot of fun and a great form of self expression, at the same time it must be a huge mental load to be so put together. There is a lot of this book that feels completely not relevant to my life, but I enjoyed hearing about nonetheless. There are also a lot of sad and vulnerable moments in this memoir. Tally, who passed away in early 2023, says a lot about being a Black man in a predominantly white industry, and makes many points that I had never thought about before.

The Takedown by Lily Chu, read by Phillipa Soo – I really enjoyed Chu’s book The Stand-In, and I’m a sucker for audiobooks narrated by Hamilton cast members, so of course I picked this book up. The novel centers around Dee Kwan a (borderline toxically) positive person who works in diversity consulting. She gets assigned to work a case at a major fashion house and hijinks and drama and self awareness ensue. I thought this was a charming book. There are some awesome – yet complicated – female friendships, some thoughtful handling of issues of race, a nice guy that is a little too perfect, and a chinchilla. I thought the ending was a little too pat, but there’s your romance happily ever after for you. Chu’s books are labelled as romance, but I feel like the romance is the least interesting parts of her books, to be honest. This book was an interesting listen to follow The Chiffon Trenches.

And Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten, translated by Marlaine Delargy -Another Engie recommendation, which I picked up after I read Killers of a Certain Age and wanted more stories of women who are no longer in the first (or second or third) bloom of youth. These series of short stories of an 88 year old Swedish woman who lives alone and likes it that way, to the extent that she’s willing to do anything to keep things going the way she wants. It’s a little dark and very funny. It’s a good palate cleanser read, I think – short, smart, and unlike anything else I’ve been reading. I already have the sequel in my TBR pile.

Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes – This book is a collection of essays that looks at caregiving in America and how this essential act is greatly undervalued, probably because it is considered the domain of women. She has one really great essay that points out how our society values inventors and not maintenance workers – and what are caregivers but the maintenance workers of people’s bodies? I really liked Garbes’ previous book Like a Mother, which looked at pregnancy and childbirth today. Essential Labor, I felt, was a more personal book. I think I wanted something a little more scholarly, though, and with a little more focus. While there are so many thoughtful and interesting points in this book and a lot of personal narrative, Garbes also recaps a lot of other people’s writings and part of me just wanted to read all the articles listed in her bibliography rather than just her interpretation of them.

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon – This novel was in the New York Times’ list of favorite romance novels of 2023, and sounded interesting. Chandler, a ghost writer, feeling slightly disillusioned about her career has a one night stand with a cute guy. The next day, she is hired to ghost write the memoir of a former teen heartthrob who turns out to be… one night stand guy. This book features one of the funniest and most honest bad sex scenes I’ve ever read – Chandler and Finn’s one night stand is incredibly disappointing for her, and you know what? It’s probably one of the most true to life things I’ve ever read in a romance novel. Sex is always amazing in romance novels, but is it always that in real life? Anyhow, I expected the rest of the book to be about how Chandler and Finn grow to like each other as they work on the book, but it turns out to be so much more (and so much more open door) than just working on the book. There are a lot of details I liked about the book – I particularly appreciated how Chandler and Finn bonded over being Jewish because you don’t often find those cultural details as such a casual key characteristic in romance novels. I thought this was a fun read all in all – not terribly memorable on a whole but some really great moments. I’m a little burnt out on first person narrative contemporary romance novels, though. Why doesn’t anyone write romance novels in the omniscient voice?

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie – I’ve read a lot of Agatha Christie, but hadn’t read this one yet. I think I saw this on a list of really good Agatha Christie novels that people don’t generally talk about. This was a Poirot mystery set in Mesopotamia, so all the expected cringe-y colonial undertones are there. The mystery itself was quite clever. I try not to guess “whodunnit” when I read mystery novels because I think it takes the fun out of the big reveal for me. I am probably in the minority here, but I actually prefer Miss Marple to Hercule Poirot mysteries. Poirot can be a little smug for my tastes. Nonetheless a nice comfort read for the end of the year.

Well that wraps up 2023 reading. I’ll have a post with my favorite books and reading experiences from the year later on. I hope.

On my proverbial bedside table:

Wild Genius on the Moors – Still reading about the Brontës. Everyone is dead almost. Charlotte doesn’t like to leave home.

Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis – Amber is competing on a reality show for a chance to go to Mars. Boyfriend Kevin is back home in Vancouver, trying to live life. So far, funny and wry.

Untangled by Lisa Damour – it has the very cringe-y subtitle of “Guiding Teenage Girls through The Seven Transitions into Adulthood.” The content is better than that subtitle.

The Monsters We Defy (audiobook) by Lisa Penelope read by Shayna Small -Part heist novel, part historical fantasy, set in the Washington DC’s Black Broadway of 1925. This is proving very entertaining.

Mad, Bad, And Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed – Mother Daughter Book club read. Muslim American Teenager in Paris for the Summer on a mission to solve a historical question with a very cute descendant of Alexander Dumas in tow.

Christmas 2023 + the rest of December

New Year’s Day at Great Falls.

Happy New Year!

Here we are in a brand new year. I wrote a check for the kids’ piano lessons this morning, and wrote 2024 for the first time. It always seems special writing that first check of the year, and remembering to write in the right year.

Everyone is back in school and back at work (except me – I go back to work at the end of the week), and I feel like I finally have time and room and capacity to think and be and not just do. The Husband had a therapist once who always reminded him that we are human beings not human doings. There has been a lot of doing these past few weeks. Five people at home on vacation makes for a lot of meals and dishes and laundry and picking up, I’m finding. And the pockets of time I did find, I just felt so scattered – I couldn’t sustain concentrate on things like writing here or reading books for more than a page at a time. So there was some aimless drifting and puttering and a lot of Hallmark movies. And baking and cooking – making food always seems like a nice activity to pull me out of being idle, yet not being too mentally taxing. And scrolling. And random internet surfing. It seems like whenever I sat down to write, I’d get distracted by some internet errand – holiday gifts still to research and procure, plans to make, other people’s news… All in all I’ve been feeling a kind of mental malaise and not quite sure how to kick it. So I’m just going to start with the run down of how the rest of December and our holiday went.

Fun and Festive Things, Pre-Christmas:
Our first Snow delay! This was mid December – There was a smattering of snow on the ground and we woke up to a two hour delay at school. The 4 year old and the 6 year old wanted to play in the scant snow, so I bundled them up and sent them in the backyard where they played for about an hour or so. Of course the snow was gone by the afternoon – it seemed hardly worth a two hour delay, but it was nice to have a change up to the routine.

Tuba Christmas! I feel like we didn’t do our usual full slate of holiday activities this year, but even so Tuba Christmas is a must for us. We go every year. It is pretty much the same concert every year – hundreds of tuba (and euphoniums and baritones), playing Christmas carols, audience sing a long, “Santa Wants a Tuba for Christmas”, the kids going up onstage to sing “Jingle Bells”. Even the patter between songs is always the same. This year, hilariously, the MC gave the wrong introduction to one carol. Which made us laugh and laugh because it’s been the same MC for as long as I can remember. It was an excellent lesson in making a mistake in front of a thousand people and being able to laugh at oneself.

Celebrating our anniversary. The Husband and I celebrated our anniversary by taking the train into DC to have dinner at the restaurant where we had our wedding dinner. On the way down, we stopped by Union Station where our friend’s string quartet was playing holiday music. It was a fun mix of seasonal tunes and pop hits. She later told me that at one point they noticed that no one was stopping to listen, so she suggested they start playing Beetles and Taylor Swift. And the crowds started gathering. I guess there is something about playing Christmas songs in December that people take for granted, but a string quartet playing Love Story – well that’s special.
After listening to our friend play, we walked to the restaurant and enjoyed much to much indulgent food. And… when the waiter found out that it was our anniversary and that we had had our wedding dinner at that restaurant, he comped up our dessert. What a nice surprise! We finished up the evening by walking through the holiday market – enjoying the cold and the holiday crafts and lights before we got on the train and went home.

We made and decorated cookies. I wasn’t really feeling this, but I rallied and decided to just make two kinds of cookies – sugar cookies for decorating and molasses cookies because those are my favorite. The kids really wanted to decorate cookies and were asking, so I’m glad I managed to do this. I used the leftover royal icing mix from the 4 year old’s birthday which helps simplify the process a lot. I tried a new sugar cookie recipe and it wasn’t great – the cookies ended up spreading too much when they baked and were rather shapeless. I’ll have to research a try a different recipe next year.

Not seeing Christmas Lights. We did not go to any of the many option for seeing Christmas lights, but we did take a a walk after dinner one night and looked at the lights in our neighborhood. There is one house that goes all out for Christmas that is always fun to see.

Work Things – I’m off work until January 4th. Since closing my last show, I worked two vocal recitals (one as stage manager, one doing the super titles). After a fall of opera, a voice recital is a nice balm on my work soul. No chorus of thousands to wrangle, no sets, no costumes, no props. Just a singer, a pianist, and some really great music.

Not so Festive Things:
-Life. Life. Life. Between two kids, I spent six hours at the dentist in the past two weeks. They now have enough crowns between the two of them for a small monarchy. Sigh. At least I got some reading done and they got to watch TV. The dentist has tvs on the ceiling. The four year old watched two straight hours of Bluey while the dentist worked on her teeth.
-General holiday shopping fatigue. I feel this every year. I need to find a less stressful/tiring method of Christmas shopping.

Christmas Day: We had a quiet Christmas at home. I think that is how everyone prefers it, especially the 11 year old. Whenever we float the idea of travelling for Christmas, she is always vehemently opposed. And I get it – there is something nice about waking up in one’s own bed, with the Christmas tree.

Christmas even my mother arrived. We went for a walk at the Botantical Gardens becuase they have a train display, but whe we got there, we found that it was closed because – either because it was Chrstmas Eve or because it was Sunday, not sure which. We spent an hour wandering around anyway, just enjoying the bare beauty of the garden in winter. Then we went home, and got ready for Church. Our Church was having a living Nativity for the first time, so we went a little early to see that. There were donkeys and oxen and a little tiny baby, all bundled up in the manger. Our church has a children’s procession on Christmas Eve, where all the children lead the opening procession, and it was really sweet to see the four year old walking with her hands in prayer position, more docile than I’ve ever seen her. After church, we came home and had chicken curry for dinner then watched the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special before sending the kids to bed. After that, I was up late on cooking (as I usually am) – I made meatballs, rainbow jello, and prepped the cinnamon buns.

Christmas Day we slept in a little bit, waking up around 8:00am. I had to proof the cinnamon buns in the oven. I had hoped that they could do a slow cool rise in the sun room, but that proved to be too cool and they didn’t rise much, so I had to put them in the oven to proof for another hour before I baked them. The kids did stockings first thing, then we talked to the Husband’s sister and family who were in the Netherlands. Then we had cinnamon buns. Then, finally, we did presents around 10pm. I’m surprised the kids were patient to wait that long.

After presents things took a leisurely pace. I picked up wrapping paper, read some, watched the kids play with their presents. At some point, I thought it might be nice to start dinner, so I did that and that took the rest of the day.

The Christmas Day Menu:
-Seafood Paella as the main dish. Ever since a family brought a paella to the 6 year old’s class for their Thanksgiving celebration, I’ve wanted to try to make one. So I decided that it would be Christmas dinner. There are about a gazillion paella recipes online and I couldn’t choose. On Christmas Day, I was texting with my friend in Jordan – her husband was in the foreign service and they had been in Barcelona for a stint – I was lamenting that I didn’t know where to start for my paella recipe and she texted me a recipe from a paella cookbook. The recipe was simple and my friend’s husband said it was pretty flexible and I could use all the seafood that I had bought – calamari, shrimp, scallops and cod. Yay. It turns out paella is simpler to make than I had thought – and it is kind of festive and feeds a lot of people. This won’t be my last time making it!
-Meatballs from a Tapas cookbook we had. I wanted something meaty to complement the paella. Everything I googled said paella is supposed to be it’s own meal, but I don’t know – there is something incimplete about just having a rice dish for dinner, so I made meatballs to go with.
-Rainbow Jello. As always. Though I made it this time since none of the kids were up for making it.
-Orange salad. Something bright and slightly acidic to balance the paella. Most Orange salads call for fennel, but I’m the only one in the family that likes fennel, so I just made this dressing and tossed it over sliced oranges with kalamata olives on the side.
-Green Beans. The Husband steamed and then sauteed some green beans for something a little green.
-Tomato Garlic bread, also from the Tapas Cookbook. Basically toasted bread with garlic olive oil and rub tomato on it.

After dinner, we watched It’s a Wonderful Life and then went to bed. All in all, a nice day.

The week after Christmas had lots of adventures – here’s the highlight reel:

–Taking the two girls and a friend to ClimbZone and then out for Korean food afterwards. I even got to climb too! It is very exhausting. One of my goals for family fun this year is to book a session at the climbing gym for the whole family. After ClimbZone, we went to this Korean place that makes their own noodles and it was fascinating to watch the whole process of pulling and stretching the dough into long strings. I was unfamiliar with a lot of the food and ended up mixing the noodles with the sauce for the shrimp. oops.

–An overnight trip to Lancaster, PA where we visited the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania:

And we went on a quest for licorice. I had gotten a few bags of Klepper and Klepper salty licorice when we were in Amsterdam, and, as the package says, it is the best licorice ever.

I was very sad when I finished the licorice that I brought home, so I lookonline and the closest place to us to find it is at a candy store in Lancaster, PA called Sweetish, which specializes in candy from Sweden. So when the Husband suggested a trip to the Railroad museum near Lancaster, I immediately suggested we stop by Sweetish as well. The store was amazing. Bins and bins of salty licorice, in addition to Klepper and Klepper. And all sorts of other candy as well. We walked away with a small fortune in candy – In addition to salt licorice of many varieties I also got a smoked licorice. (Of course the two kids who had crowns were not allowed any gummy candy, so they had lots of lollipops. Funny enough, the dentist told them that they could have as much ice cream as they wanted. They just had to remember to brush.).

We stayed in a hotel that night and had some pool time and the next morning we went to Longwood Gardens. The Christmas displays were still up, and even though we didn’t stay to see everything lit up after sundown, we still got a good dose of the holiday display. It was a drizzly, misty day, which has a beauty of its own, I think. A totally precious moment was when the 4 year old started getting tired, so we all took turns carrying her, even the 11 year old. What a good big sister she is!

–Theatre trips. I took my mother to see Fiddler on the Roof as a Christmas present. It was a beautiful production, really well done. The director had framed the show as a story told by a group of immigrants in an Ellis Island-type waiting room. So the different people arriving to America took on the roles of the various characters in Anatevka. I love seeing diversity onstage and I thought this was a reall thoughtful way to have coour conscious, but not colour blind casting. This framework, I thought, also really brought the idea of leaving home front and center in a way that I didn’t usually think of. I mean I knew that Tevye and his family leave Anatevka at the end of the musical, but so much of the beginning of the musical is about the homes and traditions they have established that to think about the beginning of the show through the lens of the end was certainly sobering. Also sobering was the presence of security guards and bag checks throughout the theatre. I feel a little abashed that I go to see a show about a Jewish village and take safety for granted, but there are many people who don’t. Of course going to a show is a bit of escapism, but there was also something very timely about this particular show at this particular time.

The next day, the whole family went to see A Year with Frog and Toad, which was a delightful. I laughed so hard throughout the show. The six year old, who looooves Frog and Toad, kept telling me when things were different from the book. At the end the show, he said, “In the book, they don’t explain how the clock gets broken. And now I know!” Because the breaking of the clock is a major plot point in the musical. Highly recommend this show! We’ve been listening and singing along to the soundtrack ever since. It’s ostensibly a kids’ show, but there were certainly many moments that I identified with. I will admit, Frog and Toad aren’t my favorite books, but there is something incredibly astute about them.

Bike ride – A friend passed along bike that his kids had outgrown and one of them was just right for the 4 year old, so we took them out for a bike ride one day. During the pandemic, they closed off one of the major parkways during the weekends and it continues to be closed to cars on weekends and holidays, making for a perfect place to practice riding bikes. We met up wit some friends and biked down to a playground. The Husband has always been anti-training wheels, but I feel like at this point, the 4 year old just wants to keep up with her siblings so giving her training wheels is the best tactic. I’m sure she will outgrow them soon – goals for 2024?

Hallmark Movie Marathon – we did not have an all day movie marathon, but we did do an entire afternoon where we watched two Hallmark movies back to back. I paired this with a decluttering activity and went through all the 11 year olds’ clothes and got rid of the stuff that didn’t fit and made of list of things that she needed. Apparently she has a gazillion t-shirts and only four pairs of pants. (Also – this was my dilemma at one point – is what does a pre-teen wear for a “nice” outfit??? She has fancy recital dresses and t-shirts and hoodies, but nothing in between that she could wear to the theatre or to a nice dinner. We need to figure this one out…) I’ve watched many many Hallmark movies this year… recap coming!

Trip Downtown to visit the U.S. Botanic Gardens and Trains: Every year the trains have a different theme and this year the theme was pollinators – they had all these models of pollinators, constructed from plant and vegetations. Also – we found a great new restaurant. Food now on the National Mall is always hit or miss, so I’m always on the look out for good food options and we found this place called Rice Bar that has customizable noodle and rice bowls. It was really tasty and had lots of vegetables, which is rare for food places down on the Mall. I was really excited to find this place.

New Years: The 11 year old likes to stay up to watch the ball drop, so we did, though the Husband was in bed by 11:30pm and the two little kids were asleep on the couch before midnight as well. Earlier in the day, the Husband made an apple crisp in a cast iron skillet – a super simple recipe, which we proceeded to eat out of the skillet – 5 forks and dig in! On New Years Day, we did some more cleaning and then went for a hike at Great Falls. It was a little rainy and a little chilly, but once we got going, everyone had a great time. The kids invented this game where they were each rulers of rock kingdoms and would gather for summits to discuss world issues. Seeing all three kids play together always feels so special since they are all at such different ages.

Sibling summit.

So that’s the rundown of the last bit of December into the New Year. I’m sure there are lots of moments I didn’t remember. I had sort of also fallen off the journaling wagon in all the holiday happenings. Something that I want to make sure to made time for again.

Grateful For:
– My mother being here. The kids enjoy having so much grandma time.

-Zoom – so we can talk to family far and wide. We don’t live near any family and we are very bad at keeping in touch. Zoom allows us to be a little less bad at it.

-All the good and love and peace of the holiday season. Health and family and friends.

-The Husband scraping the frost off my car in the morning.

Looking Forward To:
– Filling my planner and new pens. I have several blank planners for 2024 that I’m looking forward to filling. I use the Hobonichi Weeks Mega as my every day planner. Last year I used the Hobonichi Techo Cousin as a journal/habit tracker. I ordered both another Cousin but also the Jibun Techo Lite for journal/tracking this year. Not sure which I’ll use. I like having the pages for each day that the Cousin has, but truthfully, I don’t use every day, so it kind of seems like a waste of a planner. I also ordered a fountain pen sampler from Jetpens. I love the scratchy resistance of the Preppy Fountain Pen that came in my pen sampler last year, so I thought I’d try more fountain pens. Jet Pens only has a black ink fountain pen sampler, and I prefer blue ink, but even still, I’m excited to try them out.

-The 11 year old’s basketball season is starting, so I’m looking forward to cheering her on.

-A few light months of work. I’m taking advantage of not having to be at rehearsal or at the theatre in the evenings to take on some life fun things – for everyone in the family. I’ve encouraged the Husband to sign up for some volunteer work, I’m adding some activities for the kids, and I’m looking into a class for myself too. I feel like while I’m able to be home to drive carpool or watch the kids while the Husband does something for himself, we should take advantage of the time. My job puts such limits on what we can do as a family sometimes that I feel bad, so I’m eager to lean into life things rather than work things for a few months.

-and of course, all the things that 2024 might bring and that I might plan for the year.

What We Ate:
Well, again, since I did really poorly at tracking and journalling this month, I don’t really remember what we ate, but here’s a few memorable dishes:

-Tourtiere for New Year’s Eve Dinner. I’ve made this Canadian meat pie before, and it’s a super cozy meal, which I feel was what the day called for. I used the recipe from the King Arthur’s Baking cook book.

-Egg Curry. One of our new hit recipes from 2023 and a perfect pantry meal. I threw in some kabocha squash as well.

-Congee. I often end up having to throw out leftover rice because I’m never inspired to do anything with it. This time, I decided to make congee with it. I had a loose recipe to start, but then I just started adding whatever I had around – leftover chicken wings from a get together with friends, a bit of that kabocha squash, the last stalks of celery, some jujube berries. It made such a cozy meal. I find kitchen sink meals so satisfying – something about being able to use up the last bit of something in the fridge just makes food taste better to me.

Taiwanese comfort food.

-Chicken Curry in the Instant Pot from Melissa Clark’s Dinner in and Instant. Perfect make ahead meal for Christmas Eve.

-And there was lots of pizza. I think we had at least two or three pizza and movie nights in the past few weeks.

Weekly recap + What we ate: Tech/Open/Closing

The view from my console. Act 2

Well, this post has been sitting in my draft folder for over a week, so no, it is really, not “last” week’s recap, but from two weeks ago, but this time has been very full, so where we are. But this is what I’ve been up to….

Last week Two weeks ago, was a whirlwind week in the theatre. We were in the theatre Tuesday and then we had tech, opening, four shows over the weekend (really five if you count the 11:30am dress rehearsal on the day of Opening), and then closing. It’s been a super intense schedule.

Things that made the week great despite often working 12 hours a day with barely a dinner break:
– The show itself. It’s a beautiful show. The music is by turns catchy and moving, the story makes me cry and laugh and makes my heart grow.
– The other people on the stage management team. Who care just enough to do an amazing job but not so much that the hard stuff gets in the way of just getting stuff done.
–The crew at the theatre. So this show went up in the smallest of the theatres that we perform in. I love this crew so much! The two lead technicians are always positive while at the same time being realistic about the limitations of the space – they solve problems without drama and don’t get annoyed when we ask for too much. Everyone is really nice and really good at what they do. There was one day when I wanted to take spike measurements (Spikes are the pieces of tape we put on the floor to tell us where the furniture or people or props need to be placed – we measure where they are so when we remount the show, we know where we put everything). This isn’t something we always have time to do, and sometimes is is painfully slow because we only have two crew members helping us. This time, after one show, the crew basically swarmed the stage and got it done in twenty minutes. I don’t know if I can convey how amazing it was, but it was amazing.
Also – the crew moved my stage management console to the house (what we call where the audience sits) so that I could spend the first few days of tech out front. This is only important because usually I tech from backstage, where I can’t really see anything, and being able to tech from the front and see the show is actually quite helpful.

The Lighting designer snapped this picture of me at my console, which is kind of fun.

I very rarely get pictures of me working, so I was tickled by this. I’m standing at my console, which has four tiny monitors – one so I can see the conductor, one so I can see the stage, one infared so I can see the stage when it’s dark, and one that has the lighting cues so I can keep track and make sure we are in the correct light cue. The monitors are kind of small, so it was nice to start tech rehearsals out front to I could better see what was going on before moving backstage. Also, yes, I stand on a box to call because I’m short and the console was sized for someone taller than me.
–The audience. Seeing families and little kids coming to the theatre – man, nothing warms my heart like that.
–The Husband. I know I say this all the time, but I really couldn’t have my job without him. The gold star this time, though, goes to him for bringing all three kids to a dress rehearsal for my show. Taking kids to an 8pm show on a weeknight isn’t exactly a stress-free activity, so major props to him for doing that. I love that the kids got to see what I was working on – apart from it being a great show for kids, it lets them see what mom is doing when she isn’t at home in the evenings. I think it’s kind of abstract to them what I do and why I’m gone, and I feel like it helps when they get to see me at work.
-Climbing 13 flights of stairs to the theatre every morning. My show was in one of the smaller theatres, way at the top of the arts complex. There is an elevator, but to get there from the parking garage involves either cutting through the backstage of another theatre, or walking through the orchestra pit, where there is this sign:

Ominous. I went through anyway.

So the most direct route is to take the stairs. Some days, I figured, if I did nothing else that day, at least I climbed 13 flights of stairs.

The view from the top

The one moment I lost my will to continue.
This is my work computer:

As you can see, the power button is, brilliantly, located next to the backspace and delete button. There was one evening, I had about an hour before rehearsal to crank out a piece of paperwork that was kind of key to the top of show sequence. It had been a crazy busy day and I finally had time to sit down and do this chart and people were arriving for their make-up calls and the hallways were starting to buzz with anticipation and activity as people got ready for the rehearsal. I made a typo, and hit “backspace” to correct it, but accidentally hit the power button and the computer shut down, taking my paperwork into the ether. I put my head down on my computer for five seconds of utter despair, screamed a little inside and then sighed and moved on with life.

Stage Manager on a crate.

So all in all, a good but exhausting week. It has left me very behind on all things holiday, and so that part of life feels a little … unprepared.

The Annoying/Upsetting life admin:

In my continuing saga to renew my driver’s liscence – I finally got to the MVA and… their card reader was down. Argh. I had to yet again re-schedule my driver’s license renewal.

Then the four year old finally had her dentist appointment and has a jaw-dropping five cavities. So she also has to be scheduled for crowns, which requires sedating her, and the next available appointment they had was actually the day that I had re-scheduled my driver’s license appointment. Wump wump. So I guess the license is being re-scheduled again. I am completely flabbergasted by the state of my children’s teeth. And the four year old even flosses. I mean not every day, but at least a couple times a week. So I am going to have to be more diligent about the teeth:
1) consistent brushing in the morning – I’ve set an alarm reminder for this.
2) I need to do a pass with the toothbrush when they are done. I’ve been told that my kids have naturally very deep grooves in their teeth, which makes for good places for bacteria to grow.
3) no more gummy candies and cut down on the sugar. I love Welch’s fruit snacks, but I guess I’ll take one for the team and stop buying them. Or just stash them at the office.

On the bright side, the dentist said that once they had crowns, they wouldn’t have to floss those teeth. He actually almost said they wouldn’t really have to brush back there, but I think he realized he shouldn’t really be saying that and stopped himself.

Outfit of the week –
Not very interesting this week because we’ve been in tech and performances. Tech is the one time where I always wear pants because I have to be up and moving around a lot. I try to wear colourful clothes during tech so I can be seen easily onstage. I didn’t take any photos this time, but maybe next tech I will – I basically pretty much wear the same two or three outfits every time I tech a show. For performances, I wear all black. People sometimes say, “You must have a lot of black clothes since you work backstage.” Truth to tell, nope. Here are the two outfits that I cycle between when I’m running a show:

My black wardrobe for cooler weather is basically:
-two pairs of black pants – one is a pair of Betabrand’s dress pants yoga pants that look polished but are so stretchy, and the other is a pair of black cords/jeans. Though I mysteriously can’t find that latter pair, so I basically wore the Betabrand pants for five days in a row last week (those are the ones in the picture).
– 2 black long sleeve shirts. The one in the picture is actually a maternity top from Gap that I’ve been wearing for six years or so. By other long sleeve black shirt is a dolman sleeved cotton shirt from Uniqlo.
-1 black v-neck short sleeve t-shirt. It’s from Pact, though I bought it on super sale at Whole Foods. (tip! Whole Foods sells Pact clothing, and they always seem to be on sale when I see them.) This t-shirt is made of very sturdy, smooth cotton.
-1 black v-neck 3/4 sleeve dress from Wool&. It’s the Willow dress. Super versatile. (Also in the picture, you’ll see I’m wearing my FlipBelt – I wear the Flipbelt backstage with my dress because I need to clip the belt pack of my headset to it.)
-1 sweatshirt blazer. Also a work horse. It looks like a blazer, but feels like a sweatshirt. I’ve gotten lots of complements on it backstage, where it is dark and people can’t tell I’m just wearing a glorified cardigan.
– black leggings – I have 3 or 4 pair of Jockey pocket leggings that I wear all the time, not just for backstage. I love them because they are mostly cotton and have side pockets.
-1 pair of black shoes, Wolky Passion Mary Janes. I feel like I should also get a pair of Chelsea boots or sneakers as well, but these Mary Janes go with everything and are pretty comfortable, so I’m probably fine. I do occasionally wear my running shoes backstage since they are black, but that always feels a little weird.
-I don’t usually wear a hat because then the headset won’t fit on my head, but for some reason on this show, I had a headset that could go over the hat, so I wore my hats backstage. That hat was given to me fourteen years ago by a friend at my bachelorette party.
-For opening nights, I also have a chiffon-y top and skirt that feels a little fancy.
So between those 10 items of black clothing, I manage to get through a whole run of a show. I repeat clothes a lot, but like I said, no one really cares what you’re wearing when you are moving around in the dark backstage. Every so often, I’ll feel uninspired by my black capsule wardrobe and then I remind myself that I don’t actually wear much black when I’m not working, so no point in spending money to expand that part of my wardrobe. When I’m feeling meh about putting on my blacks, I just do it anyway and then I get over it pretty quickly.

Tech snack discovery of the week: One of my go to quick foods to pack during tech is an avocado. I just chuck the whole thing in my bag and then at work, I split it in half and eat it with a spoon. Well, this time, I had also packed these Tamari Soy Sauce Rice Crackers from Trader Joe’s and I thought, “We put avocado on sushi, why not on Tamari Soy Sauce Rice Crackers?” And I used the crackers to scoop out and eat the avocado and it was delicious. Definitely going in my “easy emergency dinner” ideas list.

Brilliant pairing!

Tech Steps Stats:
Average Steps/Day: 6913 (Definitely lower than when I am an Assistant Stage Manager since being an ASM requires running around backstage a lot more.)
Average Miles/day: 2.8 miles
Average Floors/Day: 8 floors.

Grateful for – in addition to all the above things that made our week in the theatre so fulfilling:
1) The colleague who recommended me for my supertitle job. I was prepping the translation slides for my next voice recital gig and realizing how much I actually love doing supertitles. This gig wasn’t something I was actively looking for; the organization was looking for a supertitle coordinator and asked my friend if they knew anyone who could do it and he gave them my contact info. I’m so grateful that my friend thought of me.

2) My friend, who sent us a copy of her new cd of music for children. It’s brilliant and I am in awe of her talent. She has one song that she said was inspired by my 11 year old years ago when she must have been 5 or so and asked for a song about being bored. The result was a song called “It’s the End of Your Screentime.” And there is one song that is a riff on “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” where she talks about stars and the atmosphere and rhymes the phrase “Blue Super Giants” with “I love Science.” I mean how awesome is that? You should check it out! The CD is called Because He Was A Weasel – her website is here. I feel so lucky to know such a smart and witty and thoughtful person.

Looking Forward to:
1) My mother’s coming to visit. She is spending three weeks with us. Yay. I’m hoping I can convince her to make dumpling when while she is here.

2) Hallmark Holiday Movie marathon. The 11 year old’s request. Seems like the perfect way to spend a day since the weather has gotten decidedly chilly.

4) Theatre trips. I’ve booked tickets to see A Year with Frog and Toad for the family – the two little kids LOVE Frog and Toad – and also tickets to see Fiddler on the Roof with my mother. Fiddler on the Roof was her favorite movie, and I thought this was a good Christmas present for her since it wasn’t something that she would have to store or take back to California. I so rarely go to theatre that I’m not working on that to have actually bought tickets seem novel and special.

5) Pants. I was lamenting my lack of pants – I have one pair suitable for winter, not counting the aforementioned black pants for working backstage; I’ve been wearing my linen pants to supplement, but that seems… not seasonally appropriate. When Duluth Trading company had their holiday sales this month, I ordered many many pairs of pants to try on. I don’t love pants, but I’m excited to potentially have more than one pair for cooler weather. One pair I ordered is flannel lined!

What We Ate:

Monday: Kabocha squash curry from Meerah Sodha’s East. East is cookbook I borrow from the library at least twice a year – it has such great and flavorful vegetarian recipes. I should just buy it, I love it so much. (Funny story, I bought this cookbook for a cousin gift exchange a few years ago, I love it so much. Then my meat eating/vegetable hating cousin ended up drawing it. My other kind-hearted cousin graciously stole it from him, saying “I love vegetables!” But to be honest, I don’t know that she actually cooks.) The recipe for the curry floating around online, though.

And that’s the sum total of what I remember from dinners last week. I’m sure the Husband fed the kids quite well. There was a movie night where they watched Candy Cane Lane. I might have made instant pot soup another night, but I can’t remember. One day for lunch, I did make a really tasty Cheesy Kale and Rice Cake bake from Hetty Liu McKinnon’s Tenderheart cookbook. I had rice cakes (the Korean kind that are dense and chewy), and some kale languishing and I just used whatever cheese I had on hand and the result was amazing. The recipe isn’t online, but you can see a picture of it on McKinnon’s IG feed, and, if that is your thing, get the cookbook because there are so many terrific vegetable heavy recipes in there.

So that was the recap of tech/opening/closing week. Clearly I’m past that, but I’m still playing catch up and counting down to the holidays. I’m looking forward to having time to to sit and reflect on my day, rather than collapse in exhaustion when I get home from work at midnight.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Best Laid Plans and a Good Thursday

And now we have turned the corner into December! I have just one show and two recitals and a bit of office work to get through and then I’m off contract until after the new year. Of course that’s still two weeks to get through, and with the holidays bearing down …

I had to work all weekend, but the Husband took the kids to buy a tree and they put it up and decorated it while I was still at work. And not just the tree, but they also put up Christmas lights on our porch and pulled out the decorations for the mantel and top of the piano. Also, an added touch this year, they wrapped coloured lights around the railings to our upper level. We go back and forth as to to coloured lights or white lights on our tree, and this year, the white lights won out.

The view from the landing.

The Husband also got the kids Advent calendars. These ones had a nativity scene and stickers for each day that you are supposed to add to fill in the picture, ending, of course, with the baby Jesus. The four year old got really excited and did the first three days on day one. We’re going to have to hold her back lest she finishes all the stickers before Jesus is supposed to arrive. I had toyed with the idea of doing this watercolour advent paint along – every day the company releases a new small watercolour tutorial. I really love the idea, but I don’t see it fitting into my day. Or maybe when I’m off ontract, I’ll jump in.

Things that didn’t go according to plan this week – all those appointments for life admin that I had scheduled into the pockets of free time this week. I know things have a better chance of happening when I schedule them, but still… so frustrating when I feel like I finally did some adulting and made appointments and then have to cancel them. The sad: various bodily ailments. I had plans to knock out a bunch of life tasks this week, but plans had to be changed. The appointment for my drivers license renewal that I had booked was waylaid by a vomiting child, and had to be re-scheduled. The same vomiting child woke up two nights later complaining of an ear ache, which turned out to be a double ear infection. So her long awaited appointment at the pediatric dentist was also re-scheduled. (She also woke up in the middle of the night the next evening. No good reason, crying inconsolably. I let her stay up and watch Hallmark holiday movies with me and that seemed to make life better.)

Which, actually was a good thing that I had to cancel the morning dentist appointment because the 11 year old injured her thumb on Monday and couldn’t move it on Thursday. This was concerning because she had a piano recital on Friday. Since I wasn’t taking the youngest to the dentist on Thursday anymore, I could take the oldest to the doctor to look at her thumb. It’s like those puzzles of sliding pieces – move one piece over to create a space and slide another thing it its place. Anyhow, turns out the 11 year old had a minor sprain. “Take three Advil and you’ll be fine,” the pediatrician said. I was somewhat surprised by this advice, but okay. It’s better than having to get an x-ray and an MRI.

Thursday actually turned out to be a lovely full day. Not lovely in that it had any special adventures or big events, but just lovely in that things just flowed. It was my one free day this week, so I wanted to get as much life admin done as I could – I did the school bus drop, then I came home put away the laundry that had been sitting there for days (That the laundry even gets done is thanks entirely to the Husband who washes, dries, and folds mountains of laundry every week.) At 9:45, I picked up the 11 year old from school and took her to the Pediatrician’s appointment for her thumb. Took her back to school. Went home and put away more laundry. Then went back to pick up the 11 year old from school for her passport appointment. Submitted passport application. Hooray! Crossed that off the list and bought stamps for Christmas cards while at the Post Office. (Not that the cards are even started, but that’s one step done.)

Then it was 1:30p and the 11 year old and I decided that she could ditch the last two periods of the day – so we went to get Panda Express (her first time!) and walk through Joann’s Fabrics before heading home. I had work meeting – even though it was my free day from the show, I still had some departmental duties to do. Then once that call was over, the 11 year old and I walked down to pick up the 4 year old from school, which was nice because the 11 year old and I don’t get much time together – a combination of my work schedule this fall and prickly tween. After that, I did the school bus pick up and came home and cooked dinner while the Husband took the 11 year old to buy a dress for her recital.

After dinner, we did something new and fun (okay, so maybe we did have a mini adventure after all…) We had a pajama library excursion. Returning library books and checking out Christmas books was the one thing on my Thursday to do list that I didn’t get to, so I decided that after dinner, the kids would get into their pjs and we would go to the library for an hour. It was actually a nice fun break from routine, and I was glad to give the Husband and hour of alone time since he’s been on single parent duty pretty much since September. (Actually now that I think of it, an hour seems like barely enough for all that he’s done this fall.) I’m definitely putting this on my list of “Winter Weekday Evening Fun” – I think when I’m not working, on the nights that we can finish dinner by 6:30p, a pajama library excursion is very doable.

Thursday planning Post-it. Yes, I plan on a Post-it. I do have a planner, but for some reason, this is what I default to

So Thursday was a very satisfying day. It all felt like a very full day – one in which I didn’t have time to idly scroll my phone and lose half an hour of my life, or think about what to do with my day because there were enough scheduled things to give me structure, but not so many that I couldn’t breathe. I managed to do almost everything on my planning Post-it – it was very satisfying to scratch things off the list.

Pet Peeve of the Week – I adore the Husband for doing all the laundry in the house (except mine – I like to do my own laundry.) (also – he does the laundry even though the 11 year old is perfectly capable of doing it, so props to him) Anyhow – he hauls it down to the laundry room, puts it in the machine, starts the machine, comes back and puts it in the dryer, then he folds it. When I have time, I will put the kids’ clothes out on their bed so that they can put it away before they go to bed. BUT…. one of my pet peeves is that he does not fold the shirts with the design on the front visible. It is very important to the six year old that he wears certain shirts with certain pants. But, if the shirts are all folded with the design on the inside, how will he find the shirt he is looking for? He will take every. single. shirt. out of the drawer, strewing them across the room. What havoc!

Now, I know this chaos is not the Husband’s fault, so really this pet peeve is not directed at him. Anyhow, now when I am laying the folded clothes out for the kids to put away, I will refold all the shirts with the designs facing out. Truth be told, it does not completely alleviate the strewing of the shirts. But I can wish. Also – I use this 2 second method to fold shirts. Changed my life.

Outfit of the week:

I love this sweater vest, but I don’t wear it too much because it is somewhat bulky. But if you look, you’ll see that the front is made up of overlapping panels. I bought this vest right after my youngest was born. The Husband had given me a subscription to Rent the Runway earlier that year because I was feeling a little down about not having any cute clothes that fit. RTR carries maternity and nursing clothes, but I also got really good at looking at non-maternity/nursing clothes and figuring out if I could nurse in them. This sweater vest with it’s overlapping panels felt like it would fit in the “nursing friendly” category. So I added it to my monthly rental and when it arrived, I found that it indeed was perfect for nursing. Anyhow, that was three years ago and I ended up loving the vest so much that I bought it. (I guess this follows the trend set last week with my nursing dress that I still wear).
Continuing on in the vein of “clothes that I bought when pregnant” that little skirt I bought when I was pregnant with my first – it has a wide waist band that you can fold over, which was great for my expanding stomach at the time. At some point, the skirt developed a hole near the hem, but the skirt was so comfy and versatile that I just took scissors and trimmed six inches off it, making it the perfect mini skirt to wear with leggings. (Also that skirt/legging combination is often what I wear when I bike to work, since I can bike easily in it but also if I put on the right top once I get to work, it all looks okay for going to rehearsal, and not like I just biked five miles.) The leggings and shirt are from Duluth Trading Company – their clothes are solid, but a little unexciting, which makes them good for layering. The hat was a gift almost twenty years ago from a colleague whom I worked with. I used to have a red tam that I wore all. the. time. But then I lost it, and my friend bought me this hat because she said I didn’t look like me without a red hat.

This quote made me laugh: from the New York Times’ By The Book section featuring Rick Riordon:

I’ve always found this question a little… I don’t know… snobbish. I read a lot of romance novels, a genre that often is put into the “guilty pleasure” category, and I always feel like that is such a misogynistic take on the genre. What ever is wrong with the world that stories about happily ever after and people finding joy and pleasure in life are considered lesser than a 700 page tome about misery and suffering? Anyhow, I appreciate Riordon’s tongue in cheek point about the guilt one feels from reading should not be from the book itself.

Food discovery: Marmite! I had always heard of marmite and how some people find it awful. Which immediately makes it intriguing to me. So when I saw it at the store last week, I had to buy a jar. I ate it on a buttered crumpet (also one of my recent joys – a hot buttered crumpet for breakfast). My verdict: salty, very salty, umami filled but only palatable in small doses, with a slightly bitter after-taste. My first impression was that it kind of tasted like spreadable beer – and then I googled it and that made sense because it is made of yeast, originally invented as a use for leftover brewer’s yeast. I’ve been reading a few recipes for noodles that involve marmite, and I want to try that too.

Grateful For:
-Flexibility to stay home with a sick child. I don’t really have formal sick leave. The Husband, who works a “normal” white collar job, takes leave to stay home with kids when they are sick, or works from home. I don’t have benefits like that (or at all…) But, I do have understanding colleagues who, when I text in the morning and say, “I need to stay home today because the 4 year old is vomiting. Can you guys cover rehearsal without me?” They always say, “Of course!” Granted, this isn’t something I would feel comfortable doing if it were a tech rehearsal or a performance, but for a regular staging rehearsal – I’m grateful that I can do it.

– the 4 year old, who, after spending her sick day with me, says, as I am packing up to go to work for the evening, “It was nice hanging out with you!” Melted my heart and made staying home with a sick kid and listening to Llama Llama audiobooks in repeat not so thankless a job.

– The kids’ piano teacher for teaching them piano and for having a recital for kids to play. It was the six year old’s first recital. He played Jolly Old St. Nicholas. It wasn’t perfect, but he doggedly kept going. The 11 year old played a piece with lots of notes and chords and arpeggios. Afterwards there were cookies.

-Rehearsal ending early. There were a couple of days when we ended rehearsals really early. One was the Friday of the aforementioned piano recital, and I was able to get to the recital in time. And then another day, the last two hours of rehearsal were cancelled and I then had time to update some paperwork and clean up the markings in my score. Getting those couple of hours back so that I could get ahead with my paperwork was such a gift. I guess this is an example of things not going to plan, but in a good way.

Looking Forward To:
-Tech week! It feels like I just teched a show, and here we are again. I have a free day tomorrow, which is filled with the cancelled appointments from last week, but I’m also going to do some food prep: make boiled eggs, make soup, marinate some beans, stock up on fruits and vegetables and healthy snacks. Maybe make some chai concentrate so I can have a tasty hot beverage in the mornings. I heard about this condensed milk chai based, and I want to try it, though I worry about it being too sweet. I want to plan my outfits for the week as well. I’m always nervous going into tech because so much can go wrong and I feel a lot of pressure to keep things moving. I know some stage managers thrive on the adrenaline of tech, but it honestly, is not my favorite part of the process. Honestly, I’m dragging a little this week and I need to really dig down and remind myself of why I love this little show I’m working on and how lucky I am to work with some very excellent people.

-I have a supertitle gig for another voice recital coming up. I know the pianist and it’s always fun to see people I know play.

-Finding time to read. Right now reading:

Fiction Read – part of mother daughter book club
Audiobook for the commute
Non-Fiction

What We Ate: I cooked! Well, two out of seven meals, but it’s a start.
Monday: Husband cooked, I have no idea what they ate. Maybe eggs?

Tuesday: Sweet Potato and Black Bean tacos from Dinner Illustrated. I actually didn’t cook this, but I did plan and prep everything for the Husband before I went to work.

Wednesday: Mac and Cheese and green beans

Thursday: Bahn Mi Noodle bowls, from this recipe, though I used tofu instead of pork and noodles instead of cauliflower rice. Always a tasty meal.

Friday: First dinner was butternut squash soup I pulled from the freezer. After the piano recital we ordered pizza and watched Spirited. Holiday movie season is not open at our house.

Saturday: Peanut butter toast and yogurt. I had Thanksgiving leftovers after I got home from work.

Sunday: Not sure what the family had, tortellini, I thinn. I ate Tuesday’s sweet potatoes and black beans in a wrap. It was actually supposed to be my lunch, but I had a packed day at work and didn’t eat lunch that day. I actually ate this at the pool while the 11 year old had swim clinic. Usually she carpools to swim clinic with our friends, but this week they were sick so the Husband took her. Then, in order to avoid him sitting with the two other kids until swim clinic was over, I offered to leave work in time to pick the 11 year old up. Okay, the sad thing is that after I ate my wrap, I packed up to go meet the 11 year old as she came out of the dressing rooms, only I didn’t pay attention and I ended up leaving my Tupperware at the pool! Not sure if I’ll ever see it back now. Wump wump.

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Being Thankful and Straight on to Christmas

The kids love any occasion to make a sign. Notice the handprint turkeys!

In a lot of ways, while Hallowe’en feels to me like the start of the end of the year, Thanksgiving kicks off the the true, inevitable, unstoppable slide. I mean I can’t stop time either way, but Hallowe’en feels full no on of possibilities and plans while Thanksgiving fills me with “Oh shit! I’m not going to be ready!” I’m working full time until mid December, but there are things that can’t be put off until then – Christmas cards, tickets for events we want to attend, Christmas shopping, the tree. I mean I guess we could delay the tree until I’m done my current spate of shows and recitals, but then it would only be up for ten days, and where’s the joy in that? I think the Husband has a plan, though. I came home from work on Sunday night to this:

A couple years ago, I decided that we needed to up our exterior Christmas light game and so we got this from Home Depot. It makes me ridiculously happy, even though it might be though of as just this side of tacky. There are a variety of slides that the projector can display, so after Christmas, we can switch to just snowflakes and enjoy the festive lights into the New Year. (It also comes with a Hallowe’en slide, but I don’t know that we’ve ever used that.)

Thanksgiving itself was quiet and cozy. I was up late the night before baking pies. In the morning, the 11 year old made waffles, and let me sleep until 8:30am before telling me I needed to come down for waffles. We then watched the Macy’s Day Parade while the Husband and kids made sausage balls – this is one of our Thanksgiving traditions. Followed by watching the dog show, also tradition here. I went for a run around noon, then came home and popped the turkey in the oven. One of my friends, in town to work on the show with me, came over for Thanksgiving Dinner. She essentially played with the kids for 5 hours while I got everything ready. What an absolutely wonderful friend she is!

Thanksgiving dinner. Missing is the Rainbow Jello and the rolls. And of course the pies.

For dinner we had:
-Turkey – buttermilk brined and spatchcocked. I had spatchcocked a chicken before, never a turkey. The main appeal was that the recipe said a spatchcocked turkey would cook in 80-100 mins. Yes please. I actually took it out at 90 mins and it was a little dry .
-Stuffing, made separately. The sausage dressing from A Year of Miracles. I’m not usually a stuffing person, and particularly since I was spatchcocking the turkey, hadn’t originally planned it on the menu. But then I wanted to make something from Ella Risbridger’s cookbook, and there was a recipe for sausage stuffing with apples and chestnuts and I immediately wanted to try it. I’m not sorry at all.
-Grilled zucchini with gremolata, also from The Year of Miracles. This was a last minute add as well. I didn’t think there were enough green things on the menu and I had some zucchini in the fridge.
-Green beans – the Husband’s specialty. He steams them then sautes them with garlic and soy sauce. So tasty.
-cranberry sauce – the cooked kind. Pretty basic recipe with some fresh ginger added.
-Rainbow Jello aka Ribbon Salad. The 11 year old made this from a recipe card from my late Mother-in-Law’s recipe box. Also another thing we have every holiday dinner. Also the only thing the two little kids wanted to eat. I used the Rainbow Jello to bribe them to eat the other things.

-gravy made from dippings
-German Potato Salad – my friend brought this. When we were at her house this summer, she made this for us and it was so good that I requested it for Thanksgiving dinner
-cranberry relish – my friend also brought this. I’d never had cranberry relish before, and I really liked it, especially sprinkled with pecans.
-rolls. Last year I didn’t have rolls and we all agreed that was a mistake. This year we had the Pillsbury crescent rolls and Hawaiian rolls.
-Apple Pie – when I made it the night before, I couldn’t tell if the bottom cooked through. Last year’s pie had a bit of a soggy bottom, so I was a little paranoid that I’d repeated the mistakes. So the next morning, I covered the pie in foil and popped it back in the oven for 20 minutes. Not sure if that was the reason, but the crust was in much better shape this year. I use the apple recipe from Serious Eats and the crust recipe from King Arthur’s Flour Baking Companion.
-Pumpkin pie. I use the recipe from Tartine, with an extra egg yolk added. (I’m glad I noted that in the blog because I always think I’m going to remember and I never do.) Only, I didn’t have pumpkin. I don’t know where I think a pumpkin was going to magically appear from, but I didn’t have pumpkin. But… I did have a plethora of butternut squash from the Hungry Harvest box. So I roasted that up, and in a fit of panic that it wasn’t going to be enough, threw in a sweet potato as well. The verdict from the Husband, “It’s good, but it’s not pumpkin pie.” So for those of you who think that pumpkin has no taste and pumpkin pie is merely a vessel for sugar, cream and pumpkin pie spice … well, I guess you’re wrong. The pumpkin does matter.

It was a lovely day. We watched some dog show, then ate some (lots) of food. Then after dinner, we played Codenames – which was kind of hilarious becasue the 6 year old insists on being the Codemaster and he’s … well, he’s six. There was a minor meltdown when his team (consisting of him, the 4 year old, and the Husband) kept losing to my team (me, my friend, and the 11 year old). “You NEVER give me a chance to win!!!!” he yelled.

“Um…” I said, trying not to laugh, “every time you play is a chance to win, honey.”

That did not go over well. So we declared it was time for pie, and that seemed to mollify him.

After my friend went home, we put on our pjs and watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, though I don’t guarantee that I stayed awake. We were all full and exhausted and agreed to leave the dishes for the next day.

(Also – update on our broken dishwasher. It does need replacing because it is old and all its parts don’t really talk to each other anymore. But the repair guy said that if we turn the machine off at the breaker and back on again, it will re-set itself and we can run it. So I did not have to handwash Thanksgiving after all. Frugal me thinks, “Great! The dishwasher still is going strong! We’ll get another ten years out of it!” But the Husband thinks that having to turn it on and off at the breaker is not an ideal solution, so we have taken advantage of the Black Friday sales and ordered a new one.)

The day after Thanksgiving, the Husband took the kids away on an overnight. I so wish I could have gone with them – they went to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. We hadn’t been to this museum in several years. We used to go several times a year – combining it with a trip to Longwood Gardens. But the 11 year old sort of aged out of it before the other two kids were really into it and then 2020 happened. Anyhow, the Husband decided that this weekend was a good time to go back with the kids so he took them on an a great little trip: Please Touch, then Hotel (with pool!, which I take it was a key component of any hotel stay) and hotel breakfast bar (also important.) The Please Touch Museum apparently was a great hit, and parts of it had been redone since we last went. We were a little unsure whether the 11 year old would be an active participant in a visit to the children’s museum, but she apparently really had a good time too.

Then the next day, the Husband took the kids to the Brandywine Museum. Back in September, when he went to the Minnesota State Fair, he and his friends had also gone to the Walker Art Museum. Well, it turns out it was cheaper for all of them to go if he bought a membership, so he did. And it turns out the Walker is part of the North American Reciprocal Museums Association so that his Walker membership gets us into many many many other museums too. One of which is the Brandywine Museum. I had suggested that it would be a good museum to take the kids to because they had their Holiday Trains up, but also they had an exhibit of art from children’s books and a dollhouse, which is always a draw for the oldest. I think children’s book illustrations are a hugely underrated slice of the art world and there should be more art exhibits devoted to that. I’m kind of sad I didn’t get to go along because it sounds like it was a really nice exhibit. The Husband did send some pictures, though:

This is a picture from Sophie Blackall’s most recent book Farmhouse. Can’t wait to read it! I wish I could have seen it in real life.

The Husband reported that the kids seemed to enjoy the art and that the museum had a reading nook set up so you could read all the books featured in the exhibit. He also said that he wrote down the names of almost all the books that were showcased – I’m excited to check them out from the library.

I’m determined to make the most of our reciprocal museum membership in the next 10 months. There are so many art and history museums that we could visit. There is a Duck Decoy museum in Havre de Grace, MD, which is probably about 90 minutes from us!

As for me, I had rehearsal from 12:00p-7:00p Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so I wasn’t home to enjoy the quiet house. Friday, I carpooled with my friend to work, and we went to Trader Joe’s after work, so that kind of felt like a fun friend date. There are a lot of things I love getting at Trader Joe’s (Everything Bagel Seasoning! Pound Plus Dark Chocolate! Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups! Nuts! Dried Fruit! Rice cracker snack mx!). I don’t go very often, however, because I can’t do all my shopping there, and it’s a little out of the way. So it always feels like a treat to go.

Saturday I got to bike to work, which is always exhilarating. When I first stepped out of the house in the morning, though, the sun was shining warmly so even though it was 45 degrees out side, I decided I didn’t need my windbreaker or gloves. About a half mile into my ride, I realized that was a mistake. I was very cold. I leaned into the brisk weather and tried to savor the chill and made it to work. I did, however, walk the bike up that last hill – I wasn’t going to make it up that hill.

Fun things this week:

-In the Fall of 2020, deep in the thick of being home with kids all the time, I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do and signed up for an art class the local community college. I’d always wanted to take a class, but it never worked out with my work schedule. Well, during the pandemic, all the classes moved to be online, and I was unemployed, so I figured it would be a good time to take a class. It turns out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. (You can see posts with pictures of my work here.) Having that weekly drawing assignment gave me something to do that wasn’t changing diapers or feeding the family or supervising online learning and there was a sweet group of people to interact with every week. Anyhow, at the end of the second class I took, the instructor suggested I submit a drawing to be included in the course catalogue. This was two years ago, and I didn’t think anything of it, knowing that they must get many submissions and my picture was no where as polished at the stuff usually featured in the catalogue. Last week, the latest course catalogue came to our door, and to my surprise, I opened it up, and there was my picture!

It’s not quite like being published or anything, but it tickles me to have a picture of my art out there.

-The six year olds’ classroom had a “Classgiving” potluck. The week before sign ups were sent out for each child to contribute a dish if they wished. I asked the six year old what he wanted to bring. “A turkey,” he said.

Whoa what? No. Try again.

“Rainbow Jello!” That sounds more reasonable. Except when I looked at the food sign ups, it was like six or seven different kinds of baked goods. This was supposed to be the kids’ lunch on the last day of school before the break, and I was a little wary of adding yet another sugary dish to the mix. So we thought about it for a few days. This was the dilemma – do I send what the kid wants to send, or do I send something that will balance the rest of what is on the sign up? Given that it was meant to be a lunch potluck, I was leaning towards the latter. “What about your dad’s sausage balls?” I suggested, thinking a protein option might be a good thing to add. He heaved a sigh, “Okay…”

Which was a win for me on two counts: 1) savory protein (albeit wrapped in carbs), and 2) the Husband got to make them. He’s such a trooper.

On the day of the Classgiving party, parents were allowed to join, so I dutifully went to his classroom, even though I find these things terribly awkward as I am not good at small talk with other parents. Participating in classroom activities solidly falls into the “Will make my kid happy” category for me. When I got there the kids were watching Inspector Gadget and the six year old barely registered my presence. Oh well.

Oh the best part, though – after all my over thinking the potluck sign up of carbs and sugar – I didn’t have to worry that lunch would be unbalanced … someone brought in a paella. Like in a pan, beautifully presented with asparagus and peppers and chicken. It was awesome. It’s now one of my goals for 2024 to make a paella. Also, as I was leaving someone brought in this delicious looking meat stew with couscous. Only by that point the kids were so full of baked goods that I’m sure they didn’t give the meat stew a second glance. Sad. Oh well, I’m sure the other parents got to enjoy it.

-Also highly recommend this poem, by Clint Smith, which I heard on an episode of On Being from earlier this month. It’s entitled “Ode to Those First Fifteen Minutes After the Kids Are Finally Asleep.” Here are the first few lines, but you must click the link and read (or listen) to the whole thing:

Praise the couch that welcomes you back into its embrace
as it does every night around this time. Praise the loose
cereal that crunches beneath your weight, the whole‐grain
golden dust that now shimmers on the backside of your pants.
Praise the cushion, the one in the middle that sinks like a lifeboat
leaking air, and the ottoman covered in crayon stains that you
have now accepted as aesthetic.

Clint Smith’s poem “Dance Party” is also pretty great too. Smith perfectly captures the energy sapping joy of caring for other beings.

-One of the nice things about working on Sunday is that there is a Sunday farmer’s market next to work. So I stopped by before rehearsal to pick up some apples and vegetables (arugula, cucumber, onions, and carrots) as well as lunch (a berry smoothie and chicken empanadas). On my way out, I passed a stall that had a sign that said, “Pickled mushrooms! Try one! It will change your life!” Well, who am I to turn that down, so I did. They were pretty tasty, maybe not life-changingly tasty, but very tasty all the same. The pickled mushroom stand was one that specialized in fermented food and before I knew it, I was walking away with their kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut and, yes, a jar of pickled mushrooms. The ironic thing is that morning the Husband and I had just cleared out the fridge, getting rid of all manner of science experiments and eating up other things, including a bucket of pickles. I was a little abashed to fill that pickle vacuum so soon, but I’ve always been a sucker for fermented food…

Oksana’s Produce Farm. Why make space in the fridge if you can’t fill it with more pickles???

Outfit of the week: Last week was also the first day of rehearsal for the holiday show I’m working on. For the past few years, I almost always wear the same thing for the first day of rehearsal. The outfit is a little more polished than what I usually wear because I like to look relatively put together the first time I meet the singers and the conductor and director. Wearing this outfit is a bit like putting a a uniform- it gets me in the right mindset to start rehearsals.

First Day of Rehearsal Outfit.

The grey dress is actually a nursing dress from Latched Mama. If you look closely, there are slits in the side for nursing access. I bought it when the 4 year old was born and it turns out it is such a versatile dress that I wear it all the time even though I’m not nursing anymore. And it has pockets!! The jacket is Eileen Fisher which I picked up at Nordstrom Rack five or six years ago. I like how it looks a little vintage-y and I love the colour. It’s also a jacket that can elevate any outfit. I’ve worn it with sweats and a t-shirt and ended up looking cooler than I have any business looking. The boots need a serious polish, but I also have had them for ages and even had them re-soled a few years ago. They have a wingtip look and feel fancy but are really comfy. The tights are Uniqlo HeatTech because it suddenly got cold last week. And the scarf is super cool – the little circles are actually the digits of pi, written in a spiral. My sister in law got the scarf for me from a company that specializes in STEM based prints. I always get lots of compliments on that scarf. The hat is from my other sister in law (I think it has appeared before in other posts.)

Grateful for:
-Thanksgiving and friends and food and family. Not just on this one day, but all the days.

-Finding my gloves! Several years ago, the Husband gave me some lovely red gloves for Christmas. They were warm, leather Isotoners, and they had touch fingertips so I could use my phone while wearing them. But last year I couldn’t find them. I was distraught. They were not inexpensive so I was hesitant to replace them. Well, this week, I lost my raincoat (sad!), so I had to grab a spare coat from our closet one rainy day. It was a windbreaker that had belonged to my late mother-in-law, which we had kept just for this kind of back up need. Well, I put it on and reached into the lump in the pocket and there were my red gloves!! I was even better than that feeling you get when you find a $20 bill in your pocket!

– Leftovers! One of the most wonderful things about Thanksgiving is having leftovers for easy lunches for days afterwards.

Lunch!

Looking forward to:
-Errands getting done. because I don’t have to be at work until 11:30 most days, I have booked morning appointments this week for driver’s license renewal (mine), and then on my free day, I’ve booked a passport renewal (the 11 year old), and a pediatric dentist visit (the 4 year old.) Boy will it feel good to get some of the stuff off my plate. (spoiler alert – the 4 year old has a stomach bug so the license renewal has to be rescheduled since I have to stay home with her. Let’s hope the rest of the things will happen, though.)

-The two older kids’ piano recital. It’s the six year old’s first piano recital. He will be playing Jolly Old St. Nicholas. As you do when you’ve only been taking lessons for four months. The 11 year old is playing a more complicated piece called Sleighride. She’s been working really hard. At first her teacher was going to make some cuts to the piece because she hadn’t been really practicing and the whole piece wasn’t going to be ready, but then 11 year old buckled down and learned the whole piece. I’m going to be honest – piano, specifically practicing piano, has been a huge struggle. I vacillate between not caring and caring very (too) much.

– Christmas books! I love reading holiday and winter theme picture books in December. I used to make it an Advent calendar type event and wrap them all individually to read one per night. But that was a lot of work, and one year the Grinch was due back at the library, but it was still wrapped so I didn’t know which book it was and that was annoying. So now I just bring them home in a big reusable shopping bag and leave them out and we just grab what we want.

What We Ate: It feels like we ate out more than usual last week. Partly the lead busyness around Thanksgiving, also partly me working until 8pm most nights and the Husband and I not sitting down to meal plan. I don’t love eating out all the time, but I guess it’s just that season for us right now.
Monday: Bahn mi sandwiches (take-out)

Tuesday: Tofu stir fry with noodles (the Husband cooked)

Wednesday: We had tacos out after the six year old and Husband got haircuts. I had shrimp ceviche and a really tasty fish taco from Fish Taco, a local chain.

Thursday: Thanksgiving – see above.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday – leftovers from Thanksgiving. The Husband hot the kids pizza on their road trip. Sunday was dumplings and broccoli.

I don’t really see myself getting back into the dinner cooking groove anytime soon, which makes me a little sad. I miss having that time to putter in the kitchen and then producing something nourishing for everyone to eat. I had thought that I might be able to do more morning meal prep with my later morning starts, but to meal prep, I have to meal plan, and I haven’t had a lot of time for that lately either. I’m instead focusing on having good basics – fruits, veggies, eggs, kimchi, cheese – in the fridge so that even if I’m not cooking, there are options for solid snack meals for me. The Husband actually does really well for getting everyone fed. Honestly, the kids like his cooking more than mine.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! How is the rest of the year looking? Is it frenetic or calm? Or somewhere in between?

(bi) Weekly recap +what we ate: Closing and catching up.

We closed the show last night. It’s been some very long days since opening. Usually the pace slows down, but with this show we had a second cast to prepare and also a children’s version to put up (more on that below.). But in between, I had plumber visits (the upstairs bathroom faucet wouldn’t turn off, the downstairs toilet ran), and school runs, and dentist appointments (the long delayed dentist appointment that I wrote about earlier. Turns out the six year old has so many cavities he needs to be sedated to have them taken care of. So that is yet another dentist appointment in my future. Only because of the sedation, we need to find a day when someone can stay home with the six year old afterwards, so that’s another piece of the scheduling puzzle.

Last performance!

Fun things:
-The 11 year old’s school play. It was a play about aliens masquerading as students and the drama group presented the play in the school cafeteria. The 11 year old did great! She remembered all her lines, prompted a fellow colleague with a loud whisper when he forgot his lines, and generally seemed to have a good time. Seeing a bunch of middle schoolers present a play in their cafeteria with just one single lighting instrument and everyone wearing their own clothes is such a contrast to the work I do where sets cost millions of dollars and there are so many complicated details. Watching these students, I’m reminded that theatre is storytelling, and for all the spectacle of opera or Broadway, storytelling is at it’s core a very simple thing.

-Fall Trip to Longwood Gardens. On my day off one recent Sunday, we went to Longwood Gardens. The chrysanthemum exhibit was still going on, and the holiday train display just went up. The day was perfect for being outside – sunny and crisp and almost warm.

The kids and I do this rainbow photo project whenever we go to Longwood Gardens where we try to find something every colour of the rainbow. Blue is always tricks and we usually end up taking a picture of the sky. Even still, I love how many different nuances of colour there is to be found at Longwood. Here’s this trip’s rainbow photo collage:

After our trip to Longwood Gardens, we drove back home and met up with a friend who was in town for work. He was someone the Husband met contradancing twenty-some years ago, but who since had moved to the other side of the country. We talked a lot about what a wonderful contra-dance community there was in DC, and how he hasn’t found anything like it in his new city. We talked about how COVID must have hit the contradance community hard. It so funny how contradancing is something that we use to do once or even twice a week, yet we haven’t gone in five or six years. I’ve been listening to contra dance music when I run lately, and it’s really taken me back to a younger me, to a time when we would dance til 11pm, when the music was live and hot and pounding and flowing. I’m sort of sad, too, that we don’t go dancing anymore, but maybe this is just not the season and we will find our way back one day.

-Scone-apalooza! For the children’s show we did (more on that below), we had to be at the theatre at 9am, so I brought in scones. I stayed up later than I should have the night before to make scones, but I love baking and hadn’t done it for a while. Baking is definitely one of my flow activities. By the time I got done all the scones, it was almost 2am. I made blueberry scones (America’s Test Kitchen Recipe), chocolate walnut scones (from The Irish Pantry cookbook) and I also wanted to make a savory scone so I made cheddar ham scones (King Arthur’s Baking Cheddar Scones with ham added.) I accidentally put twice the amount of garlic powder in the cheddar and ham scones, so they were particularly tasty.

Scones for miles. From back to front: Chocolate Walnut, Blueberry, and Ham and Cheddar.

– Ground plans. One of the fun this that that after we finish each show, I get to bring the ground plans home for this kids to use as scrap paper. When they were little, we would draw body outlines on the paper, but now they have gotten too big for that. Once during the pandemic, my mother covered a whole page with a drawing of a neighborhood that she designed for the kids.

The not fun:
-Sick kids. Not sure what it was, but 2 out of 3 kids were home vomiting last week and missed a couple days of school. And then there was one day when I wasn’t feeling well and I really felt like I was going to collapse while calling the show. Luckily I didn’t, but I did spend most of the show sitting down, which is something I rarely do.
-More really long hours and a sleep deficit. Not having downtime after a show opens is really hard. With rehearsals continuing for various show-related things and prepping for the next show, I’m not getting the days free that I’m used to after a show opens. I’m feeling behind on life and self things. I did start to make appointments to get life admin tasks done – renewing drivers licenses and passports. And we did schedule a plumber visit for the one day id week that I could work from home so now we can use the sink in the upstairs bathroom again. The house seems like a constant state of mess; I want to figure out better systems for that. I’m looking forward to December when I can re-set life a little bit.

Something I contemplated this week:
There is a lot of construction going on in the lot behind where I work. It’s actually been quite fun to see the construction vehicles work and machines moving. The other day, I looked up and snapped this picture:

And as I was looking at the men and machine work, I thought with a little bit of awe, “It’s all just wood and nails. Look at that building going up – it’s wood, so much wood. I thought it would be more complicated than that, and maybe it will be, but this stage is just wood.” Seeing buildings under construction, particularly with all their framing exposed, I always marvel at how fragile and basic a building can be.

Grateful for:
-windows. I spend a lot of time working in dark buildings with no windows, no way to see what the world is outside. It can feel a little insular. (It’s funny, on our company intranet site, there is a “virtual window” – a camera on the roof that shows employees what it’s like outside. Can’t decide if this is a cute idea or just kind of sad.). The other day, I woke up, got out of bed and pulled up the blinds and in streamed sunshine and I could look outside and see trees and streets and brightness and day. It was amazing. So I’m grateful for windows and being able to see outside when there are many days when I don’t get to actually go outside.

– the enthusiasm of children and the chance to give them something to be enthusiastic about. We did shortened version of our show for 1500 school kids this week. It was a whirlwind to rehearse – we performed excerpts of our show and in between we talked about the different things that go into making an opera – costumes, scenery, lights, stage hands, stage managers, supertitles, etc. The students were loud and rambunctious and very entertained. I hope that maybe in that crowd is at least one kid who grows up to be a singer, or a conductor, or an actor, or a theatre technician. And at least more than one kid who grows up to be someone who gives money to support the work of singers, conductors, actors, theatre technicians, etc.

-Not having to be at work at 9am most days. The above mentioned school show was at 11am, which mean I had to be at the theatre at 9am, something that I do maybe three or four times a year. And let me tell you, every time I get to go to work at 9am, I am very grateful that I don’t have to do it every day. First of all, the traffic between 8:00a – 9:00am is terrible. My non-peak commute to the theatre takes 35 minutes. Between 8:00am and 9:00am, it takes 50-60 mins. And people just seemed more stress at that time, less likely to let you in, more likely to behave irrationally. (Or maybe the driving is less predictable because there are more drivers out there?). Also a 9am start means that I have to find someone to take the kids to the bus in the morning. Luckily the Husband often can shift his schedule or the family we carpool with will switch shifts with me, but the school schedule is not made to accommodate parents who have to be at work at 9am. (Though I guess that is what before care is for…) And then just the general rush of having to leave 45 minutes earlier – it takes all the breath and space out of my morning. So all in all, I’m grateful that I don’t have to be at work at 9am most days.

-rehearsal pants. On the last day of the show, I went to our rehearsal office to do a couple hours work for the upcoming show before heading to the theatre for the final performance. As I was wrapping up to head to the theatre, I realized that I had forgotten my backstage running black clothes at home. I don’t usually wear a lot of black unless I’m working backstage, so I hadn’t put on my running blacks in the morning. wump wump. I didn’t have time to go home to get my black clothes. What to do? I had a black t-shirt on, but I was wearing a bright red skirt what wasn’t quite appropriate for backstage. Then I remembered that in our office was a pair of black rehearsal pants. (“Rehearsal” clothes are what we call clothes that we use in rehearsal instead of the “real” clothes or costumes. Like, say, if a singer wanted to wear a skirt in rehearsal that mimicked the fullness and length of her costume, we would get her a rehearsal skirt because the real dress probably would not be available to use.) The show we had been performing had a scene where the leading man gets dressed and so we had a pair of nylon pants that we used in rehearsal for him. So when I got to the theatre, I tried those on. I don’t think I’m the same size as our tenor, but thankfully the pants had a drawstring waistband and then I cuffed them in my best 90s tween manner. I think it was the cuffing that gave the pants a stylishly current jogger vibe and made it not so ridiculous that I was wearing men’s exercise pants backstage. Not that anyone truly cares what I’m wearing – we’re standing around in the dark, after all – but I am very grateful for rehearsal pants.

cuffing like my middle school years!
(I did not wear the white jacket backstage)

Looking forward to:
-Thanksgiving! I have to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving, so we are having Thanksgiving at home, with maybe an opera friend or two joining us. I’ve figured out roughly the menu and written down the action plan for the next couple of days. The Husband did the grocery shopping over the weekend, so we should be set. (Though the dishwasher broke… again. So there’s that… I’m not looking forward to the dishes.) Here’s the plan for the week:
Monday (yesterday): I spatchcocked and brined the Turkey. When I put the turkey in the InstantPot pot, the turkey didn’t fit and I was confused because I had used the same container last year. Then I remembered that last year I only did a turkey breast. So I’m contemplating either getting a roasting bag or just flipping the turkey every so often.
Tuesday: Go to the 6 year old’s class Thanksgiving cerebration. Work from 11:30a – 8pm, come home. Make pie dough and cranberry sauce and cranberry relish. (The kids have a 1/2 day of school, but the Husband is covering that.)
Wednesday: Kids are off school, but I work 9:30a – 4:00pm. Come home – make pies, steam green beans. The 11 year old hopefully would have made the rainbow Jello during her day off.
Wednesday: Macy’s Day Parade and Sausage ball making. Cook Turkey, finish off the green beans. I’m contemplating making stuffing. TBD.
I’m so glad I wrote notes to myself last year on things to remember for this year. One of the main notes was thatt year I decided I didn’t have the energy to make rolls, then on the day we all missed having rolls. So we bought rolls this year.

– Holiday movies! Last year, I watched a lot of Holiday movies and I’m super excited to plunge in again. The 2023 holiday movies don’t look as diverse or interesting as last year but there are a few that I’m putting on my definitely watch list, and a few from last year that I missed. (Someone highly recommended to me Mistletoe and Menorahs…). I am kind of sad that there isn’t an Asian Holiday movie; last year there were two. The 11 year old has requested as her Holiday Fun List item is an all day Hallmark Holiday Movie marathon. Doesn’t that sound like the most indulgent cozy thing?

-The holiday opera that I’m working on. It’s kind of a whirlwind quick process, but I love this show, having done it twice before. It’s a beautiful piece, fun and festive and full of heart.

– I think I’m going to take an art class this winter when my work load lightens up a little bit. I haven’t signed up for it yet, but perhaps putting it into the universe will make it so.

What We Ate:
Since I’m pretty sure I wasn’t responsible for dinner the majority of the past two weeks, here’s what I do remember making:
Coconut Rice with shrimp – This was a ridiculously easy recipe I found in the free magazine they hand out at the Giant. It involved cooking rice in a can of coconut milk, adding frozen veggies for the last 5 mins or so (I did frozen edamame and corn) and adding shrimp for the last 3 mins and then letting the whole thing sit covered for another 5 mins to let the shrimp cook. It was super fast and tasty – on the table in less than 30 mins and that’s with having to take time to defrost the shrimp under running water. I would eat again.

Butternut squash soup. I had a surfeit of butternut squash in our Hungry Harvest box, so one morning, before I went to work, I sauteed some onions and garlic in the Instant Pot, added some red curry paste, sauteed some more. Then I peeled and cubed one butternut squash and added it to the pot with one quart of vegetable stock. I set the IP for high pressure, 20 mins and left for work. I texted the husband: “Dinner’s in the IP. Add one can of coconut milk and puree.” Super simple and tasty. Vegan

Brussel Sprout Fried Rice. This is the recipe from Meera Sodha’s East. I love this recipe. Some days the kids love it, some days they don’t. This was one of the “don’t” days. Oh well, more for me!

Then there was the one day where we just had breakfast all day long. The Husband made the kids eggs for breakfast. Then at lunch, I didn’t know what to give them and I needed it to be fast, so I made breakfast sandwiches. Then for dinner, we clearly were exhausted, because that was the night we all just ate cereal for dinner. A Triple Breakfast Day!!! #lifegoals.

–

Books read- August, September, and October 2023

September and October were not great months for reading- I started many books, but many had to be returned before I could finish them. So it’s felt very scattered. I have many books started, many narrative threads open, but very few concluded.

I also have a ridiculous number of books out from the library. One day I had to clear them out of the living room and so I stacked them in my bedroom and they made a pile two feet high. Very aspirational. Our library now lets you check books back in yourself, so sometimes I will check an overdue book back in just to check it back out again and put it back on by TBR pile. That pile needs some realistic taming, for sure.

Anyhow, on to the books:

A Very Typical Family by Sierra Godfrey – A novel about estranged siblings, a family ripped asunder and slowly stitching itself back together. This is a novel for people who like novels about family drama. It’s not a book that was terribly memorable for me; it was the first book I read in August and I had to go back and look up a plot description to remind myself what this book was about. I think it was on a library book club list. I’m just not a fan of books about people who wallow in their problems and can’t just talk to people to fix those problems. The main character often conveniently either a) accidentally left her cell phone at home, or b) talked herself out of communicating with other people. There was a nice cat in the novel, though.

My Darkest Prayer by S.A. Cosby – I had listened to Cosby’s Razorblade Tears earlier this year and was really enthralled by it, even though crime/thriller isn’t a genre I’m usually drawn to. My Darkest Prayer is one of Cosby’s first attempts at a novel and it certainly isn’t as polished or tightly crafted as Razorblade Tears. The story centers around a Nathan Waymaker, a former Marine who now works for an undertaker. When a beloved preacher dies, Waymaker is hired by the preacher’s parishioners to find out what really happened. Though Cosby is heavy on the metaphors and some of the plotlines don’t resolve as neatly as I want, I thought this book really gripping and am eager to read more of his books.

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Sharon Messenger – I read this as part of my “book club” with my 11 year old. She loooooves this series. I thought it was fine. It’s about a girl who discovers that she is really an elf and is then spirited away to another world to go to school and learn to use her powers. I don’t really go for stories of magical children and since this book was the first of a very long series, I felt like there was a lot of set up and not a whole lot of plot. My daughter assures me the series gets better as it goes along and there is a pretty juicy love triangle that evolves.

The Appeal by Janice Hallett – This book was recommended on the website Ask A Manager. I don’t always like the books that are recommended there – they tend towards rich family dramas – but this one had a lot of my literary cat nips – it’s an epistolatory murder mystery novel set against the backdrop of a community theatre. I thought this novel was a lot of fun. Though the mystery itself was rather disappointing, the style was breezy and clever, which I enjoyed. I hear there is a sequel, which is definitely going on my list.

Admission by Jean Hanff Koreltz – One of my favorite novels I’ve read this year. Portia Nathan is a Princeton admissions officer who starts to really question the ethics of her job when she makes a school visit to an ultra-alternative high school. As the things that she’s built her life on slowly unravel, she is forced to face choices that she made herself as a young college student. I loved so much about this book – Portia is such a complex, brave, and capable protagonist, all the characters are so full of life, and the book, while hilarious in parts, asks some really hard questions about the whole admissions process and who “deserves” an Ivy League education and what exactly is “achievement”. As someone who has very mixed feelings about my own Ivy League education and my own place on that campus, this book really spoke to all the insecurities that Princeton fostered, and still fosters, in me. Also – it is so very well written. Like this stellar bit of writing:

“And besides, there wasn’t much to be proud of in the scene she currently set: woman alone, in the middle of her bed, in the middle of the day, in the middle of her life.” – I mean that perfectly captures the days of malaise I feel when life is just overwhelming and I feel like I haven’t lived up to my life’s potentials.

And this quote quite sums up a lot of my feelings while at college:
“Inside every one of her fellow students, she understood now, was a person who didn’t live up to his or her own expectations, a person too fat, too slow, whose hair wouldn’t hold a curl, who had no gift for languages, who lacked the gene for math. They were convinced they were not all they’d been cracked up to be: the track star, classicist, valedictorian, perennial leading lady, campus fixer, or teacher’s favorite. The driven ones she’d known in college feared they weren’t driven enough, and the slackers were sure they’d find out how deficient they were if the ever did apply themselves.” Yep – I was definitely one of those slackers that was afraid to find out they weren’t smart. I really loved this book. Also – there is a movie somewhat based on this book starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. That pairing alone is enough to get me to watch the movie. It’s a cute movie, but nothing at all like the book, except for broad plot points.

Unwind by Neil Shusterman – A dystopian YA novel about a world in which, as a compromise on the abortion issue, life is considered sacred until the age of 13, after which parents are allowed to have their kids be “unwound”, sending their kids to government institutions to have their body parts harvested and transplanted to other people. I can’t remember where I first heard about this book, but I thought it might make a good mother daughter “book club” book. This book centers around a trio of teenagers who have been sent to be unwound, but escape on the way there. It’s pretty dark. The more YA novels I read, the more I’m realizing that parents don’t really come off very well in these books – which I guess is understandable of the genre read by people who are of an age to push back against the grown ups in their world. This book was really intense – I stayed up late to finish it because I just had to know how things turned out. The 11 year old really liked it too, said it was one of her favorite books she read this year.

Sadie by Courtney Summers, read by Rebecca Soler, Dan Bittner, Gabra Zackman, and a full cast – I thought this book would make an interesting audiobook because it is supposed to be partly told in the form of a podcast. It tells the story of Sadie, a teenager who has gone missing after her sister is found dead, and the podcaster who is trying to find her. To be honest, women in peril stories aren’t really my thing, and the amount of cruelty and abuse in this book just made for unpleasant listening. Also, even though the novel is supposed to be told in the form of a podcast, I found the actual podcast segments kind of stilted.

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks, read by Renier Cortes, Hannah Church, Anthony Lopez, Alfred Vines, Xenia Willacey, Jamie Lincoln Smith, Henriette Zoutomou, Maria Liatis, Suehyla El-Attar, Eliana Marianes, Brad Sanders, Christopher Hampton – Continuing on my YA streak, this novel tells the story of three students at Urban Promise Prep School in DC who come under suspicion when their strict, no-nonsense principal is murdered. I thought this book was an interesting spin on the prep school mystery genre. Unlike most prep school novels, these kids are not white, do not come from families of money or privilege. They are kids who have to hustle and work hard to have dreams for their future, and I thought that Brooks really was able to convey how high the stakes were for these kids to prove themselves. I don’t always love full cast audio books – they always seem disjointed to me, but I thought that approach worked really well for this book – the multiple points of view as key to how each characted was slowly revealed and preconceptions were unravelled.

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson – I picked up this novel as I was browsing the library because on one of the first pages, it had a list of “rules” for mystery novels, and there was a note in the top right corner that said, “Fold this corner over” so that the reader could refer back to this list throughout the novel. That kind of self-referential humour always gets me. This novel is one of those “Family stuck in a ski lodge with their secrets” kind of mystery and proved to be a lot of fun – I laughed out loud a few times. I do wish I had read it more quickly – the actual reveal of the murderer and motive was a little unsatisfying to me because I read the book over such a long period of time that I couldn’t remember the details enough to piece together the solution to the mystery. This is one of those mystery novels where the clues are right there so it would have been more fun if I could have kept track of details better.

Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li– This book is set in Rockville, a suburb of DC near where I live and where the best Chinese food in the county is. The novel tells the story of relationships of the staff and owners of The Beijing Duck House. There are many narrative threads in this novel – family conflicts, romantic relationships, career ambitions, as well as the intense drama of trying to just get through the mundane things in life. Overall, I was kind of “meh” about this book. I thought the writing was very good, particularly the description of life in a restaurant and the details way Li describes food. Ultimately, though I think because the book is so sprawling with so many characters, I didn’t feel like the plotlines gelled cohesively for me. The whole thing felt quite episodic and lacked momentum.

The Change by Kirsten Miller – If you like books about angry middle aged women taking charge of things and confronting the casual misogyny of life, here is a book for you. This novel tells the story of three women in their 40s and 50s who, upon discovering the body of a dead teenage girl in their Long Island oceanfront community, decide to take matters into their own hands when the police dismiss the case as just another drug addicted sex-worker. Also – all three women have strange and magical powers – which, I’m not usually into strange and magical powers, but when coupled with menopausal rage, it is kind of fun. I mean this passage:
So much fury had built up inside Jo. But at last she’d identified the true enemy. She’d been waging war with herself since she was fourteen year old. But the problem wasn’t her body. The problem was the companies that sold shitty sanitary pads. Otherwise reasonable adult who believed tampons stole a girls’ virginity. Doctors who didn’t bother to solve common problems. Birth control that could kill you. Boys who were told that they couldn’t control themselves. A society that couldn’t handle the fact that roughly half of all humans mensurate at some point in their lives.
This book is angry and funny and suspenseful and sweet all at the same time. I guess one could say the men in this novel are kind of undeveloped, but I don’t imagine that they are any more undeveloped than women have been in media for years. This book was highly enjoyable for me. I stayed up until 2am to finish it.

Currently on my metaphorical bedside table:
Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes. I really liked Garbes’ book Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy – highly recommend as an alternative to Emily Oster’s Expecting Better. Essential Labor, written during the pandemic, seeks to look at the history of caregiving and how it is so central yet so undervalued.

All the Right Notes by Dominic Lim – Romance novel about a piano player/composer who has dreams of Broadway and the boy he met in high school, who is now a famous Hollywood star. I’m a sucker for novels set in the theatre or music worlds. Also romance novels with Asian leads. I started some other books this month, but I’m finding that when I’m in a super busy period at work, I need light happy books to read.

I Should Have Honor by Khalida Brohi (audiobook)- Brohi is a Pakastani activist who as a teenager, prompted by the honor killing of her cousin, started to speak out against honor crimes and advocate for the education and empowerment of women in Pakistan. This memoir was written in 2018. I’m only half way through and while I find the subject matter important, the memoir itself is a little dry.

The Takedown by Lily Chu (audiobook, narrated by Phillipa Soo) – Chu wrote The Stand-In which I really enjoyed, so when looking for an audiobook to listen to as I made scones one night, I started this one. It’s much the same humor and tone.