birthdays – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Soggy soggy week

Well that was a very full weekend! The weekend started Friday with a trip to Toby’s Dinner Theatre, and it was so much fun! We went to see Summer, a juke-box musical about Disco Queen Donna Summers. Dinner Theatre and Juke Box musicals aren’t usually something on my radar, but a friend of ours plays in the pit, and he got us a ticket discount, so we decided to take the whole family (including my parents). I’d never been to Toby’s before, but my work BFF was telling me that she went every year with her family and she couldn’t believe it was still around. The particular dinner theatre is performed with the audience sitting on all sides. When you walk into the space, there are different levels with dinner tables and chairs set up and a buffet and salad bar on the ground level. (And an ice cream bar in the lobby!) At around 7:15pm, people started clearing away the buffet and salad bar, sweeping and mopping the floor, clearing the tables, etc. And at 7:55pm the show started in the space that previously was the buffet area.

a plate of salad sitting next to a program. The program reads Toby's dinner theatre. Summer: The Donne Summer Musical. — Salad and rolls and theatre program.

As we are waiting for the the show start there is a host who gives the standard safety announcement and then gives shout outs. He goes around and calls out all the birthdays and anniversaries that are being celebrated that night and has a whole patter routine with the celebrants. The patter was hilarious and heartwarming and he always ended by wishing each person, “Good life, good laughter.” We were there to celebrate both our newly minted 7 year old, but also my parent’s anniversary. (Actually, their birthday too! They have the same birthday and they got married on that date.) I had never done the math, so I was a little shocked when my father told the host that they had been married for 53 years. Fifty-three! Wow. Good life, and good laughter, indeed.

And then the show really began. One of the fun things about dinner theatre is that the waiters who serve you dinner before the show are the actors onstage during the show. To be honest, it was a little jarring at first to see the guy who brought us our drinks an hour before, now onstage singing and dancing. We did get a little preview because he brought the 7 year old a special dessert and sand Happy Birthday to her. At intermission, the performers threw on bathrobes over their costumes and brought us our intermission drinks and the bill. I think, though, that’s part of the family feel of Toby’s Dinner Theater – the folksy humor, the “all hands on deck” feel of how the place operates. Everyone is working very very hard to make sure the patrons have a good time.

I thought the show was really well done – the space is small and in the round so it felt very immersive. (The theatre is really not that big – and in fact, it is going to be torn down at the end of the year because they are opening a new facility next door come 2027. ) The singing and dancing was full of energy and you could see everything super close because of the layout of the theatre. I think I’ve always thought of dinner theatre as cheesy and never thought about going, but you know what… I was wrong. Of course it might be cheesy, but it’s a really good time.

Saturday morning was activity free – the 14 year old’s voice teacher was out of town, and the 7 year old’s gymnastics class is cancelled whenever there is a home football game because the gym is on the campus of the University of Maryland. I guess on paper that would bring us a bit of breathing room to start the weekend, but after our weekly family meeting, it felt like I spent the rest of the morning with laundry, chores, and various tasks. In the afternoon, the two younger kids had a birthday party to go to so after dropping them, I went to the library near by to work on some supertitles for an upcoming gig. I’ve been having a hard time finding time to focus on work at home, so it was nice to go to the library where the distractions were fewer.

In the afternoon, the 14 year old wanted to go to the mall with her friends. (I mean the Shopping Mall, not the National Mall… I feel like I do have to specify that given where we are and all that.) The two major malls near are about to pass a 3pm curfew. Which means us that after 3pm, if you are under 18 years old, you must have a chaperone/parent/guardian with you who is 21 or older. THREE O’CLOCK in the afternoon!!! I’m so irked that my kids will not have the mall rat experience. The curfew is understandable because of some shenanigans (and then some) that have been going on lately at the mall – some of which I understand were quite violent. The mall is just trying to protect their businesses and patrons. But even still….

Anyhow, the 14 year old didn’t really have much interest in roaming the mall with her teenage friends prior to the news of the curfew, but I think she figured she should experience that which is about to be taken away from her. So on Saturday she went to the Mall with some of her friends. Near as I can tell, they browsed some stores, she had sticker shock as to how much clothes really cost, and she had some food and boba.

Saturday night we went to our favorite dumpling house for dinner, ate way too much and came home and collapsed in food comas. The 14 year old, the Husband and I watched an episode of Gilmore Girls and then a Kathleen Madigan comedy special. The latter was very funny.

Sunday morning was again one of those stretches that on paper seems empty, but somehow got filled with laundry, and dishes, and chores, and throwing a football around with the 9 year old. I had wanted to go to the park or ride bikes with the kids in the morning, but the weather was kind of grey and drizzly all day. Is this the start of autumn? I mean it is technically autumn now, but it feels like a switch flipped in the past couple of days and we went from scorching heat to grey and damp. The kids are wearing pants! PANTS!! I put on pants too. Pants always seems like a seasonal marker.

Sunday late morning, we spent two hours in spitting rain watching the 9 year old play flag football. This is a new activity for him – I signed him up for flag football because trying to figure out soccer made my brain hurt. The weather was gross but not bad enough to cancel the game. (They only cancel for Thunder). Props to everyone who stuck it out. I had my large golf umbrella with me, and I stood on the sidelines holding it over the kids who were waiting to go in. Our team was soundly trounced, but I think that’s okay when you have a team that’s played together for two weeks (us) playing against a team that has been together for five years (them.) The 9 year old seems to like Flag Football; he likes playing defense and chasing people down.

After we got back from flag football we had an hour or so to decompress, eat lunch and then we headed to Chuck E. Cheese for the (now!) seven year old’s birthday party. We had gotten the low frills party package – basically game cards and a reserved table – no host or extras, and we ordered pizza separately. But there were three other birthday parties going on at the same time so we did get visited by the person in the giant mouse suit, took part in the dance party, and the 7 year old got to do the ticket blaster. I find Chuck E. Cheese over stimulating, but I think the kids all had a great time. It’s funny how exhausting a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party can be, even though we didn’t do much other than say hello and hand out the game cards. (Also pro tip that I didn’t realize until after the fact – you can pause your game card. I wish I had known this because we spent 30-40 minutes eating pizza and cake and then afterwards only had 15 minutes left on our card to play. Next time, I’ll have folks pause their game cards so they extend the time available after cake.)

The 7 year old in the ticket blaster. She was smart and figured out that it was easier to grab the tickets that were on the floor than the ones flying through the air.

I did go into the photobooth – we didn’t get the the whole family into the photo booth this year – the 9 year old couldn’t be pried from playing Halo – but we got the Husband and his girls, and I got into the photobooth with my mom and the oldest. I think the Photobooth is my favorite thing at Chuck E. Cheese.

We came home and I’m writing this post while supervising the 7 year old as she opens presents and writes thank you cards. We’ve been miserable failures at getting the kids to write Thank You Cards, so I’m very determined this time that the cards will be written as the presents are opened. Wish us luck.

Other Things This Past Week:

–The youngest kid turned 7! The actual day of her birthday was quite busy with activities, so we had her favorite dinner (Ama’s chicken wings, steamed green beans, and tater tots) and then after everyone got back from activities we had strawberry shortcake. Happy Birthday to this smart, bold, fearless, happy kid. We’re so lucky you’re part of our family.

–The NY Times came out with ANOTHER List – 100 Best TV shows of the 21st Century -which seems a little presumptuous because we’re barely a quarter of the way into the 21st century, so it seems a little early to say. But hey – it’s a fun exercise and I’m sure it gets them lots of clicks. Here’s a link to the list, if you’re interested. ANYHOW… I haven’t seen very many of these shows – (I’ve seen 22 of the 100. And that’s just seen at least one episode, not “seen’ in any kind of completist way.) – but I have quibbles. It seems that the list leans heavily towards shows featuring a lonely anti-hero, solitary existentialism, and trauma leveraged for entertainment. Let’s see – the top five are: Breaking Bad, The Wire, Mad Men, Succession, Fleabag.

I haven’t seen Fleabag or Breaking Bad, but the other shows are shows that I find deeply unpleasant to watch. Not that they aren’t compelling in their own way. Not that I wasn’t sucked in to them. But in the end, they all feature some pretty demoralizing things happening to people.

Life is hard enough – I don’t need to spend my free time watching horrible people doing horrible things to each other.

I mean where is Bluey on this list? I think Bluey is quite brilliant, actually.

Or Brooklyn 99? Or Parenthood? Or Younger?

Clearly I don’t have very refined tastes.

–The absolute heartbreakingly bonkers situation of the closing of the Kennedy Center. In case you haven’t heard, the Kennedy Center has had an embattled past year or so, ever since Donald Trump fired the President and the chairman of the board and appointed himself chairman of the board instead. Things have gone downhill since then – his name went on the building. Ticket sales plummeted. Entire departments were gutted. The name came off the building (court ordered). He’s trying to find ways to put his name back on the building. And then last week, the Center was closed, citing dangerous conditions. It’s all so bonkers.
This is a place that I’ve considered my work home for over twenty years. I’ve spent a large chunk of my working life there. I’ve met the best people there – backstage and onstage. It’s where I’ve seen so many great performances, where my kids and my parents have seen so many great performances. One of the Husband and my first dates were there. My oldest has performed on the stage there. And to have the place be shut down is bewildering and gut-wrenching. I’m so mad that our President doesn’t seem to understand the purpose of a national arts center, or of a place being a living memorial that honors a dead president. To have my industry be so fundamentally misunderstood is so very very frustrating. But also … I find it baffling that he cares – there are so many other issues he could go piss on (and that he does). Why deny people the opportunity to experience the Arts? All to say, the whole thing is pretty devastating to watch.

–On a happier note – did you see that the Mayor of New York is giving away free opera tickets to New Yorkers who haven’t been to the opera since 2019? This is government involvement in arts done right.

–These enormous grapes. On another happier note – I was at HMart last week and saw there enormous grapes. Of course I bought a bag to try out and there are SO good! They are crisp and juicy and sweet. I googled it and apparently these grapes are only in season in August and September, which means we’re near the end of seeing them in stores. I’ll have to remember for next year. I might have bought at least ten lbs of these grapes in the past week. We’ve been polishing off a bag a day. Good thing they were on sale at HMart for 2.99/ lb!

–This article was an interesting read: How to Raise a Son Who is Boring and Unattractive to Women. I mean that title is click bait right there. The author does acknowledge that he is writing from a certain culturally specific ideal, but I think he does make a good point about the importance of being well rounded. There is a certain privileged bourgeoise nature to his criteria – not everyone is going to be able to afford a piano let alone lessons – but I really like his idea of teaching kids to have lots of interests – boys who don’t just do sports, but boys who also find a pathway in the arts – and raising kids who can talk to adults and who can read. I think, though, more important than the reading, is a sense of curiosity. I had forwarded the article to a friend who is deep in the trenches of dating and she said that worse than boring men are the narcissistic men who are only interested in themselves. I don’t think this article applies only to men, but to humanity in general (again, hierarchy of needs and all that…). When we have casting calls at work and the ratio of boys to girls is 1:8, it makes me a little sad that boys aren’t being encouraged to participate in the arts the way girls are. Anyhow, food for thought.

Grateful For:
-My back up car flannel. I keep one of the Husband’s old plaid flannel shirts in the car in case anyone needs an extra layer. And oh boy, last week, that layer was needed. I left the house, blissfully thinking that it was still summer. It was not. It was so very cold. I’m glad I keep this flannel in the car for those moments.

-The now 7 year old. What a brighter world this is for her being in it!

-That is rained and took the humidity out of the air, replacing it with bracingly crisp autumn breezes.

-The Husband driving us to and from Monticello safely. (Monticello recaps coming soon!). I don’t like driving so I’m always grateful that he wants to do all the driving on our road trips.

-Happy Hour with my bus stop moms. I’m grateful we could squeeze in one last gathering before my schedule got super busy.

-My bike! There was one day I drove to work and it took twice as long as normal because there was a lot of construction. The next day, I rode my bike and it was faster and I got a good workout. I was realizing that my bike is

-My Parents’ visit. My father is 82 and my mother is 77 and I sometimes take it for granted that they are still active and able to visit and hang out with the kids. Their minds are still sharp and engaged and I feel so lucky to have them with us still.

Looking Forward To:
-The Stage Managers are coming! A New Show Is Starting! My work is starting to ramp up – I’m excited, but also a little bit nervous about what’s coming up for us.

-Hair cut. I like to get my hair cut before I start a new show so I have an appointment for this week. Looking forward to having bangs again.

-Trombone! The 9 year old starts instrumental music at school this week. He’s picked the trombone. The Husband plays the baritone – I’m looking forward to hearing then play duets. I’m really glad the 9 year old’s school is still committed to music for the students.

-Hallowe’en costumes. I bought fabric for the kids’ costumes and I’ve cut the patterns for one of the pieces. I’m rubbish at cutting patterns – that’s the hardest part for me. I’m glad that’s over and I’m looking forward to the actual sewing part for the first garment I’m making. Wish me luck.

– Reading more of this book – it’s kind of a twist on Jane Eyre, set in Old Hollywood. Jury is out on it so far – it’s got a confusing dual timeline thing going on – but I do love a Jane Eyre re-telling.

What We Ate:

Monday – we got home from our trip. No one was particularly hungry since we had had a huge lunch on the way home, so it was kind of scrounge and snack as you will.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Chicken and black bean tacos – meat pulled from the freezer.

Wednesday: Ama’s Chicken wings, steamed green beans, tater tots – the 7 year old’s requested birthday dinner. Strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Strawberry shortcake w/ fresh whip cream and strawberries. so tasty!

Thursday: Spicy Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili from NY Times Cooking. Our friend had given us his CSA for the week since he was going to be gone and there was a lot of sweet potatoes. This was tasty and we have plenty left over for the freezer. Vegan.

Friday: Toby’s Dinner Theatre. There was so much food at the buffet.

Saturday: Dinner out at our favorite dumpling house.

Sunday: The 7 year old’s birthday party – Pizza at Chuck E. Cheese. Ice Cream Cake from Dairy Queen. I had a turkey sandwich when I got home. Why is there something so deeply satisfying about a sandwich? Just bread, cheese, meat, mustard – so simple and satisfying to eat.

That’s it for this week! Can you believe the end of the week is October??? Turning the corner into the last quarter of the year!

Were you ever a mall rat? Have you ever been to a dinner theatre? Or Chuck E. Cheese? What kind of things do you keep in the car in case of emergency?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Jet lag, Art by Women, airplane films

Ouf, it’s been a rough week for re-entry. I have not been able to get onto a regular sleep schedule. I’m by mid afternoon, struggle to stay awake, and end up taking three hour naps and then staying up until 2am and then sleeping til 8am, which is pretty late in our house. Overall not good for my goal of improving my sleep hygeine in 2026. The house continues to be a mess, the kids run amok on their own in the morning. On the bright side – the six year old got tired of waiting for me to wake up one morning and packed her own lunch…

I did manage to go to work – definitely not bloggable these days – make dinner a few times, meet up with my Lenten (okay, I guess Advent/Epiphany) reading group this week. But other than that, it was a whole lot of sleeping.

Some good news (since so much of it is shit these days):
We found out which high school our daughter is going to. She got assigned to her #1 pick, which is great. The results are kind of based on home school/lottery/random assignments, so it was a little up to chance. The school she is assigned to is not actually our home school, but it is closer to us, which is nice – actually in most of the redistricting maps that have been drawn, it would probably be our new home school in the future, so chances are the two other kids will also go there. I’m excited because the school is getting rebuilt – so next year she will be at at a holding school that is a little far away, but the new building will open up her sophomore year. I can’t quite believe my baby is going to HIGH SCHOOL next year.

Speaking of my baby – it is also her birthday week. It’s been a little low key because her birthday comes so soon after the holidays that I’m always negligent at planning anything. Oh well – we’ll gather with some family friends and have cake, and I think we’ll plan something for her and her friends at some point. She’s on the fence as to whether she wants a big birthday party or anything, so we’ll see what she wants to do. But oh wow… This little baby made us first time parents and now she is 14!!!!

She was such an itty bitty thing! Born at 34 weeks, just under 5lbs – we were completely unprepared for her arrival. Some day I might get around to writing her birth story here.

And look at us now!

A Museum Visit– I went to a new to me museum – The National Museum for Women in the Arts, where aside from a few exceptions, all the art in the museum is by women or non-binary artists. The NMWA is in DC, but not a Smithsonian, so I did actually *gasp* pay money to go. It was well worth the $16 (They do have two free community days a month, and I was going to wait, but the exhibit I wanted to see was closing soon, so I figured I would just pay…. such a foreign concept for me. I feel so entitled.) I had known about the museum, though given all the free museums, this museum was never high up on my list of museums to visit. But during the last government shut down, when the Smithsonian closed, the NMWA was on a list of alternative museums to visit – they even had free admission for federal workers – and I made a note to check it out.

The exhibit that prompted me to visit was called Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, showcasing female artist from the time of the Dutch Masters. The exhibit was about to close and I didn’t want to miss it. 1600-1750 was such a prolific time for art, but all the artists you hear about from the time are men – Rembrandt, Vermeer, etc. I never thought to wonder fi there were also women artists, and of course there were. Many of them were sisters, daughters, or spouses of artists and they were mostly from upper middle and upper class families. The exhibit featured not just paintings, but also scientific drawings, book illustrations, and – most fascinating to me – samples of lace. The exhibit talked about how lace-making is such an art, but lacemakers are never credited by name or even known. It kind of reminded me of the exhibit of quilts that I saw at the Smithsonian a few years ago – the idea of handicraft as art, but art that does not credit the artist, likely because it’s done by women.

Another artform that was largely women’s domain was paper-cutting. It’s not really on people’s radar because the finished project is so fragile that it seldom survives to be passed down. Of course there are painting of paper cuttings, delicate mobiles with intricate designs. One papercutting adjacent work they had was this portrait – how amazingly skillful is that cutting?

I particularly liked the art by Rachel Ruysch – her paintings featured such detail and sense of life:

(Also – I just googled Ryusch, and she had ten children while being one of the most in demand still life painters of her time. I feel conflicted as to whether one’s identity as a mother should be part of an artist’s biography, but, man just thinking of her having ten kids is just as impressive as her paintings. Or maybe no – maybe she was a shit mom who left her kids with their nanny all the time. But still… she gave birth ten times. That’s kind of bad ass.)

After I saw the Dutch Masters exhibit, I wandered the other galleries – the main collection, was interestingly enough, arranged by themes (Red, Lavender, Domesticity), rather than by era. I thought that was a really interesting way to look a pieces in a larger context. I particularly was awed by these huge watercolor paintings:

Painting watercolours this large is amazing.

Then on the third level there was another exhibit called Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies, featuring work by Black photographer Chatmon. She embroiders her photographs with richly colored threads, making a striking textured visual. Her work seeks to reclaim objects that have been used to stereotype African Americans by restoring them to objects of meaning and significance. For example this photograph of a woman with a watermelon where the fruit is given a place of royalty rather than ridicule.

There is also her project “The Restoration” where she finds racist antique dolls and re-draws the offensively exaggerated facial features and dresses them in rich African textiles.

I left the exhibit awed by the courage and creativity Chatmon has to change the narrative that surrounds her. The whole museum, in general was pretty satisfying to visit. Highly recommend.

Speaking of consuming art– Here is a list of all the movies I watched on the plane on our flights to and from Taiwan, most of them foreign films. I like to watch international movies on international flights. I very rarely watch foreign language films at home, but something about being on a flight, being held hostage for hours – I don’t want to watch popcorn movies, I want to watch movies that feel a little challenging.

This is my strategy on international flights – I first go through the menu and favorite all the movies that look interesting to me. Some of my movie catnip: films set in Taiwan (or the country I’m going to visit), films in Mandarin (so I can practice my language skills. French also.), films with romantic story lines, films that say “Award winning performance”, films that don’t look too dark, heavy, or gory (I don’t need to watch violence on a plane… or ever, really), films with an ensemble cast on the poster, films with people looking happy on the poster, film with women and not just men on the poster, films that are set on planet Earth, period films, films that are less than 120 minutes long. Then after favoriting movies, I just see what speaks to me in the moment. I don’t put on a movie until at least an hour into the flight. I like to watch a movie with my meal, and then see what else I have time for.

Here are the seven movies I watched over 30 some hours in a plane to Taiwan and back:

*The Family Stone – USA 2005: This movie is on so many “Classic Holiday Movie” lists, but I had never seen it, so I decided to put it on. Let me tell you – The Family Stone will definitely not be on any of my “Holiday Movie” lists. It’s full of terrible toxic people, and not even in a good, fun to watch way. I mean aside from the one “Check all the DEI boxes” couple (gay, interracial, and Deaf), everyone is kind of just clueless and unkind, and that in and of itself feels cliched. Holiday movies are supposed to fill me with warm fuzzies and hope for humanity. I just wanted to read all these folks the riot act.

*OMG! Mom’s Big News – Malaysia, 2025: This movie is about a couple in their 50s, with grown kids who discover that the wife is pregnant just as they are planning for retirement. I thought this was a cute movie – funny, warm, and full of quirky characters. It kind of felt like a Hallmark movie in the best ways.

*Mumu – China 2025: A film about a Deaf man who works odd jobs while raising his six year old daughter (Mumu) only to have their life together threatened when his ex comes back for custody of the child. The movie starts out as a heartwarming, quirky almost-comedy about a father and his child, but then bam! Mumu turns real dark and becomes a noir thriller as the father, in order to make money, gets involved in an insurance fraud scheme that requires him to recklessly crash cars, and then… well no spoilers. (I do find with a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese movies they tend to have both light and dark moments. There is no one way to categorize a movie often.) Its the kind of movie that on paper sounds as if it will be peddling in emotional cliches – and it does – but the performances are so genuine and delightful, the relationships so real, that I was just sucked right in. Worth a watch if you can find it, I think.

Tic Talk – Taiwan, 2024: A teenage boy with Tourette’s syndrome dreams of being a singer and also of finding his mother. One day, he meets a travelling singer and hitches a ride on his truck, travelling throughout Taiwan and helping him with his stage and sound set up. The cynical singer and the shy teenager bond. A buddy road trip movie. I really enjoyed the music, seeing the life on the road, and seeing the scenery of Taiwan in this movie. Taiwan is a very outdoors country. This movie has catchy tunes and sweet performances.

Road’s End in Taiwan – Switzerland/Taiwan 2025: Swiss Damien receives a letter that his father – whom his mother had told him died years ago – has just recently passed away in Taiwan. He travels to Taiwan for his inheritance and meets Steve, his Taiwanese half brother. Damien and Steve embark on a road trip through Taiwan to find the other two people named in the will so that the will might be read. Yes, another Taiwan Road Trip movie, though this one travels down the East Coast, so a little different scenery. This movie was kind of sad and bleak (Spoiler – the dead father was NOT a good person), but I was pretty invested in the story.

*Montages of a Modern Motherhood– Hong Kong, 2024: New mother Jing struggles with balancing childcare, work, in-laws, and her marriage in this unflinching look at early motherhood. There were so many moments in this movie that I felt very deeply – the bone dead tiredness of having an infant; the sense of not knowing what to do coupled with undeniable instinct for what your child needs; the crying, constant crying. Watching it made me feel angry on behlaf of Jing, but also I felt so lucky that I had the post-partum support that I did. The movie is bleak, but also those first few months with a baby can be so isolating and intense that I’m glad this movie puts out there how hard it can be.

*A Family Knight-Mare (Sin cobertura – literally “no coverage”) – Spain 2025: Fed up with her family constantly being on their phones, young Rita asks a fortune teller at a Medieval fair to make their phone disappear. Before they know it, the family is transported to the real Medieval Times. Will the family be able to get home before they are stuck in the past forever? After watching two bleak movies, I wanted something lighter. This is the kind of family friendly live action movie that Disney used to make all the time. I thought it was entertaining, cute, and fluffy. Not the most memorable or subtle film, but still pretty entertaining.

Grateful For this week:

-The Bears having an unbelievable season. It makes the Husband really happy.

-The Husband for picking up the slack when all I could do was sleep.

-The people at church who acknowledged 14 year old’s birthday. At our church at the end of Mass, they take time to acknowledge birthday and anniversaries. The 13–>14 year old didn’t want to stand up, and instead sunk down even further in the pew, which I think the priest saw and realized something was up. He came up after and wished her a happy birthday, and so did a few other people. I think she didn’t want a public airing of her birthday, but the quiet individual wishes really made her smile.

-Good books and Libby. I just finished the Daughters of Shandong and could instantly have another book to read.

-Raincoats for the soggy soggy week we’ve been having.

-my colleagues at work.

-The now 14 year old. What a bright, kind, empathetic, unfussy human being she is. She makes me laugh by sending me silly YouTube Shorts, eats salad, looks out for her siblings, always tries to do the right thing and notices when people aren’t doing likewise, avoids drama, and is there for her friends. She likes cuddles, food, Coke, and music. I’m so glad she’s in our lives.

Looking Forward to:

-Bao buns. We went to a new to us Asian grocery store – a small little shop full of wonderful things. We were looking for a restaurant, but it was closed and this grocery store was next to it so we wandered inside, thinking maybe the restaurant was inside the grocery store. Well it wasn’t but the store was a little mom and pop affair so it felt awkward to just go in and leave again, so we wandered the aisles and picked up some fun things – curry puffs, canned rambutan, home made pork bao, tapioca flour, and some cookies for the kids. I noticed they have a boba counter in the back, so we’ll have to make a return trip some time!

-Fencing! We signed up the 8 year old for fencing lessons. He’s always running around with his light saber and Ren Faire sword, so we figured we should try to channel that energy.

-Figuring out how to get on a regular sleep cycle.

-My ~~goals~~ gentle aspirations for 2026. Two weeks into the new year and I’ve finally taken a moment to think about these things. I’m definitely of the “New year can start any time” school. I do think I need some adulting type goals, though – something financial. I need to sit with these for a bit and then maybe I’ll share them here.

-Just started this book. Interesting concept but pretty sad in the first few chapters:

-Listening to this audio book – Two of my catnips – Christmas Carol-inspired and Will Watt as one of the narrators! It’s pretty funny and charming so far.

What We Ate:
Monday: Half Price Burgers

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – I made Tofu Chorizo from the NY Times Cooking. It was a little too spicy. Not sure if it’s worth my effort to make again – I have a recipe for soy ground beef that is easier and the family likes better. But otherwise we had tostadas instead of hard shell tacos, and those were well enjoyed.

Wednesday: Pasta with red sauce. I was supposed to cook this night, but I got home from work and fell asleep in our reading chair. When the Hsuband couldn’t wake me, he made dinner instead.

Thursday: Masala Chickpeas with Tofu and Blistered Tomatoes, from NY Times Cooking, served with Paratha (bought frozen from HMart and cooked on the griddle.) This was a huge hit. It was drier than I thought it would be – next time, I might add a can of diced tomatoes as well. Vegan (I used coconut oil instead of ghee.)

Friday: Pizza and movie night. Only we watched Indiana University football instead.

Saturday: We went out for Indian Food, the 13 (now 14) year old’s choice as her birthday dinner out.

Sunday: We went over to a friend’s house and they made pizza on the grill for us. We brought bagged salad and cupcakes.

Welp that’s some of what’s been going on here – hope you’ve had a great weekend and that the week ahead brings some wonderful things even when the big picture is bleak.

Do you have a method for picking movies on a flight? Or picking movies to watch in general? How many women artists can you name? (They sell buttons with this written on them at teh National Museum of Women in the Arts. I think I used to be just able to name Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo off the top of my head.. Now I have more!) Do you have any adulting financial goals? I need some inspiration.

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

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. )

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.

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!

Venn Diagrams of Life

a large cupcake shaped balloon, with the words Happy Birthday written on it. — Birthday balloon, and Birthday Girl.

In the Venn Diagram of Motherhood, with one circle being “Utterly Devoted Mother” and the other circle being, “Mom that drops the ball”, I found myself squarely in the overlap earlier this week, standing in the Giant grocery store at 8:30pm, the night before the ten year old’s birthday with a pre-inflated Happy Birthday balloon in one hand, and a ginormous bag of Takis and a slightly smaller bag of Cheetos cradled in my arms.

Because even though I had written in my December Aspirations List “Plan Birthday Party”, I utterly failed to do it. I don’t know why I have a mental block about this. Well, I can think of a couple of reasons:
1- I hate making decisions. And a birthday celebration is a myriad of decisions.
2- Her birthday is two weeks after Christmas. I know the flip of the calendar to a new year is a societal construct, but 2023 seems so far away during the tail end of 2022.
3 – Birthdays are just … not my thing. So it’s hard to prioritize them.

But… I love my family and my family loves Birthdays. So there I was at Giant. Why Giant? Well, I got stuck at work til 7:20pm, and by the time I got to Party City at 7:50pm, ten minutes before closing, the doors were already locked. Now I get that the last thing an underpaid sales associate wants to do ten minutes before closing is inflate eleven balloons; I don’t blame them entirely. But still… There might have been some cries of utter despair in the parking lot at 7:50pm.

Feeling defeated, I headed to Giant, since it was still open, and I figured – I didn’t get the kid a present, but I could still get her a bag of Takis. She would love a giant bag of Takis! Buying my kids Takis also fall into a Venn Diagram as well. One circle being “Things that make my kid happy” and the other circle being “Things that aren’t Legos”. Legos are great and full of creative possibilities. They also hurt a lot when you step on them, and are very frustrating when your younger siblings mess with them when you’ve only completed bag 3 of 6.

Luckily, Giant happened to have balloons, maybe not eleven, but they had some nice large foil ones. Only, there was no one working who could inflate the balloons. More cries of despair. I mean I’m already feeling pretty lame for a) not planning a birthday event, and b) deciding that a bag of Takis was a perfectly acceptable birthday present. Way back when, I used to get the oldest roses on her birthday, one rose for every year. But then, you know what? Roses are expensive, and they just die. So I stopped doing that. The very nice manager at customer service apologetically delivered the news that there was no one available to inflate my chosen Happy Birthday Unicorn-shaped balloon, but there were some pre-inflated balloons tied to the magazine displays at each register, and maybe one of those would work. There was one, a 36″ cupcake, that I thought might be okay, though it didn’t seem at it’s peak inflation point, but by this point it was 8:45pm and beggars could be choosers and all that.

Now you may ask, why am I the one running too and fro trying to make it look like I actually planned a special ~~day~~ evening? Well, that’s another Venn diagram of motherhood – one circle is “Mom guilt”, and the other circle is “Loves my kid.” And in the middle is “impulsive purchases.” The Husband, on the other hand, had only one job – the ten (soon to be eleven) year old wanted the Husband’s Kung Pao Chicken for Birthday dinner.

(Side note: It has come to my attention that my children like to eat meat and the lack of meat at the dinner table has not gone unnoticed. Just the other day, I had this exchange with the kids:
Mom: Do you guys like to go camping?
Five Year Old: Yessssss!
Mom: What’s you’re favorite part of camping?
Five Year Old: We get to eat meat!
Apparently Meat beats out campfires and fresh air and smores. )

So the Husband would make kung pao chicken, and I was at Giant.

It was all fine. It’s all fine. I’m a little salty that it feels like a lot of work for very little credit – which probably explains this little internet pity party, I’m throwing myself. It’s just that evening Giant runs are not like the type of thing where I can say to my kid, “See how much I love you? I stood in line for a balloon and Takis at 8:30pm on a school night!” (Though I do constantly remind her that I let the doctors cut me open to bring her into the world. Gah! I hope I’m not scarring her for life.) Aside from the fact that I don’t want to burden her with my mom guilt, I also don’t want to admit how utterly unprepared I was for her birthday. And at least I got to go home and kiss her goodnight before bed. There were many people working at the Giant that still had many hours left in their shift.

So here’s another Venn diagram from that evening: “People who are kind to me” and “People who work very late hours at the grocery check out.” And the nice folks at Giant are squarely in that overlap. And I’m grateful.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Authenticity and THREE!!!

Glenstone Museum. One of this week’s bright spots.

This week was one of those “between jobs” weeks.

I did not knock out as much of my “To do” list as I wanted – partly because the week after a gig is always a slow re-entry for me, partly too because my cousin came to visit. I do want to be better at picking up life after I’m done a gig. Too often, the aftermath of a gig feels like … well, you know that scene in the Drew Barrymore Cinderella movie Ever After (such a good movie!!!) when Drew is supposed to meet the Prince, but she’s in her servant clothes so she races back to the house, goes in through the back door, and then emerges out of the front door in a gorgeous gown and pearl circlet, just in time to meet the Prince, and then the shot changes to behind the front door, where the servants are collapsed on the floor in exhaustion from having transformed her so quickly….

Yeah, aftermath of a job feels like the servants on the ground in a heap. I’ve spent so much time keeping the job related parts of life afloat, that the non-job parts of life, the parts that actually allow me to function, get somewhat neglected and left in a heap (by me, not by the Husband… he does a magnificent job of holding down the fort!). And when the gig is over, I have to pull the servants up off the floor and put everything back in order, but it takes a while for me to get in the right headspace for it. I fully realize it’s a privilege not to have to figure out how to balance work and life all fifty-two weeks of the year – big props to people who do it – so I want to get better at tackling the life stuff efficiently when I don’t have work stuff on my plate.

I’m pretty good at doing the things I want to do but don’t really get to do when I’m working – I went running three times, had lunch with a friend, made muffins, got to write in this space. It’s the life admin stuff that I struggle to find the discipline to attack – laundry, big organizational projects, paperwork that needs to be done – the adulting stuff, I guess. And now I’m about to go back to work and some of it still looms. I might just have to dedicate time for it when I am working so it doesn’t pile up for when I’m not working on a show.

Some thoughts and things this week:

– The ten year old has started piano lessons again, after a break for much of August. Her lessons are at 7:15am and I particularly notice the shifting of the seasonal light on those mornings when I take her (and the other kids) to these early morning lessons. We’ve passed into the season when the sun is just starting to rise as we pack into the car, and this week, at a stop light, I glanced into the side view mirror and couldn’t resist taking a picture of sunrise behind me. Even though the traffic ahead of me sat in misty morning grey, the cars behind me were bathed in a golden red glow. Soon, I know, it will still be quite dark when we go to piano lessons, but it was a good reminder to savor the beautiful golden moments when I can.

– I’ve been listening to the podcast Under the Influence with Jo Piazza. (Not to be confused, now that I’ve Googled it, with Under the Influence from the CBC with Tim O’Reilly, which also looks interesting).

It’s a series that takes a look at the world of social media influencers, particularly mothers. I’m only six episodes in, and it’s been fascinating and though provoking. Even though I have social media accounts, I had to quit them cold turkey a few years ago because they had become a time suck and just made me feel bad about my life and career. Still, the idea of being able to make a living through gathering a social media following is really intriguing. The podcast really dissects the cultural implications of how women, who would otherwise be home-makers or stay-at-home mothers – that is to say unpaid labour – have parlayed domestic life with children into a commodity that they can be paid for. The episode on Authenticity, particularly was pretty engrossing, and made me think about how the term “authentic” is often bandied around when describing influencers.
Being authentic is valued. But so is being happy and shiny. Yet there is this paradox where when one only posts happy and shiny content, one is labelled as not authentic. I don’t think not posting the rough and hard and ugly parts of life makes a person less authentic. There is something, to me, inauthentic about reaching for a camera and generating content when your child is having a meltdown, rather than putting your camera down and comforting that child. The hard moments aren’t splashed across the happy shiny Instagram, perhaps because people are trying to navigate them rather than share them. I’m all for sharing hard moments – and I really appreciate it when people are brave enough to share them – but I don’t think sharing the hard moments makes a certain person or post more “authentic” than any other. The thing is, any one social media posts can lack context and doesn’t really reflect anything beyond that moment. Even look at our annual Christmas card – I pick the cutest picture of my kids to send to people. Am I being inauthentic because I don’t also include a picture of me washing up a poop accident? It seems like demanding authenticity just sets people – women – up for failure.
They make an interesting point on the podcast about how Hillary Clinton was mocked for wearing a scrunchie when that was probably the most true to herself thing that she could wear. While Obama or Trump or any man could probably wake up, take a shower, put on a suit and be ready for a press conference in thirty minutes, Clinton probably has to go through an hour or so of hair an make-up before appearing in public. The degree to which we demand authenticity from women yet at the same time shame her if she doesn’t put on a face, really speaks to a double standard.
The conversations on the podcast also has made me think of how I present on this little corner of the internet. I don’t want to be an influencer by any means, and it’s made me realize that while I’m grateful for the handful of people who read, I really just want to write what I want to write and brain dump the things that are interesting to me. Like this podcast, which I highly recommend.

– My mother also came to visit while my cousin was here and I managed to get tickets to the Glenstone Museum, a private museum that specializes in contemporary art, mostly installation pieces from Post WWII. A big part of the collection are sculptures throughout it’s outdoor campus, which makes for a really wonderful afternoon of meandering through trails and sitting and enjoying nature and art. The tickets are released on the first of each month are are usually booked three months out, so I was really surprised when I looked on the website earlier this week and saw that there were tickets available for later in the week. Another things I loved about the museum is they don’t have the usual placards in place giving information and thoughts about the pieces. Rather there are very knowledgeable docents who will talk to you about the artwork and the museum if you want, otherwise they leave you to contemplate the pieces for yourself. I sometimes find contemporary art hard to understand, and being able to talk to a docent and ask questions made the artwork so much more accessible. Definitely worth a trip back.

Koons. We ran out of time so didn’t make it all the way to this one.

The buildings and gardens are also works of art.

– This piece of advice from the blog Ask A Manager:

I sometimes run into this situation with interns and I admit I don’t always have the patience to be gracious about coaching someone through steps that they already have documented in paperwork. “What have you tried so far?” seems to me a great way to help distill where the trainee might be getting hung up, rather than me just telling them how to solve things.

– The big thing this week, was that the baby turned THREE!!! I’m feeling all the feels on this one. The night before her birthday, the Husband says to me, “This is our last day of ever having a two year old.” And it just about slayed me. It’s been hard, certainly, to know that she is our last baby. I love babies – the sweet, cuddly, exploratory, needs-to-be-protected, blind faith, little personalities – they are just such great companions. I’m excited to see who the baby grows up to be, but at the same time nervous because I know I can’t control that. But who she is right now is an adorable, mischievous, intrepid, dexterous, opportunistic, happy, clever, and cheeky little child. She’s the most independent of the three kids and finds such joy in everything around her. Having a baby as the world shut down was not something that I could ever had imagined happening, but she was certainly one of the bright marvels that helped keep things interesting.

skating last weekend. I used to think skate helpers were silly, but I realized that for her, keeping up with her siblings was more important than learning to skate properly. So skate helper it was.

What We Ate: I was home all week and all three dinners I cooked were vegan. We’ll see how it goes when I go back to work next week – I feel like vegan meals aren’t as easy to make ahead of time.

Saturday: I was working the evening show. I was running late to work, so I just shoved two half eaten meatball sandwiches from the night before into a container and ate them at my desk. I might have also had an apple.

Sunday: I was working a matinee, so I had bubbly water and cake for dinner at the reception following the performance.

Monday: Orange Cauliflower with Fried Tofu and Rice. The cauliflower recipe was from the Bad Manners Brave New World Cookbook and was their vegan take on orange chicken. Aside from being made from cauliflower rather than chicken, this was healthier because the cauliflower was baked, not fried. Of course then I fried the tofu to go with.

Tuesday: Tacos with meatless meaty filling from Bare Minimum Dinners, with cabbage mango slaw and avocados. I’m really liking Bare Minimum Dinners. There aren’t a lot of vegetarian recipes in it, but this meatless taco filling was pretty great. It’s a combination of mushrooms, walnuts, and pinto beans with the sauce from an adobo pepper in chipotle sauce. It was actually on the spicy side, so I just heated up a can of black beans with cumin and a clove of garlic for the two little kids

Wednesday: We went to meet a friend at a local Biergarten. They have the best wings – they smoke them then fry them so they are so full of flavor. I feel like this evening definitely offset all the vegan dinners we ate this week.

Thursday: Curry Udon Noodles with Teriyaki Jackfruit from Bad Manners Cookbook. This was my first attempt cooking with jackfruit, which I hear touted as a substitute for pork. My verdict – Jackfruit is pretty tasteless, so good sauce is needed. It did mimic the texture of fplled pork, though. But also, I added a bunch of mushrooms in with the Teriyaki sauce, and I think I would be just as happy to eat this dish with mushrooms instead of Jackfruit.

Friday: Pizza (made by The Husband) and movie – Minions: The Rise of Gru. This movie was pretty hilarious in parts, but kind of lost steam towards the end. (Or maybe we lost steam?) And then to round things out…. we had cake. I made a cake for the baby’s birthday and we zoomed the rest of the family to sing happy birthday. (Also sent some store bought cupcakes to school, because I guess this is the times right now where we can only send store bought treats. I understand the reasoning what with allergies and COVID, but it still makes me a little sad.) My cousin helped with the cake – we made this chocolate cake recipe with vanilla frosting and then sort of followed the instructions for a pinata cake. I don’t think the cake was high enough to have the desired effect of m&m spillage. But maybe it’s one of those things that’s only perfect on Instagram?

Weekly recap + what we ate – Birthday cake and back to the world

The three year old is now a four year old.

Four years ago, the country was trying to find its footing under a new administration. There were protests and shock and anger. And into this, a little boy was born. It’s funny, for the past four years, his life and the Trump administration were somehow intertwined in my head – I counted his years as I counted the years until the next election. And now here we are, the administration he was born into has turned over, though its ghosts still linger; the little boy is still here and growing.

But he is his own person, of course. A imaginative, curious, happy-go-lucky little guy. He loves trains, trucks, dancing to his own music, singing at the top of his lungs, books, and going for rides in the car. He drives his sisters crazy, but then gives them big hugs too. I love watching him puzzle out the world in his quiet perceptive way.

A couple days before his birthday, a box arrived at our door step:

Inside was a cake and a tin of cookies. I mean a cake in the mail!! How decadant is that?

The gift receipt indicated that the cake was to celebrate the two older kids’ January birthdays. And the receipt was unsigned. I did some Holmes worthy thinking – the birthday message used the diminutive form of the nine year old’s name, which very few people still use – but finally wrote to Milkbar customer service and asked them. Turns out it was my cousin in LA.

I remember when my cousin was born – and what a cute round eyed baby she was. I have so many great memories of hanging out with her when she was a baby. And now it’s certainly a little strange to realize that my baby cousin is grown up and does adulting type things like send birthday cakes during a pandemic to cheer up a couple of kids. She is an awesome person. And so are her parents (my uncle and aunt) – I’ve always known that they would raise pretty decent kids and it’s turned out to be true.

In other news this week, the baby was evaluated by the County Infants and Toddlers program for some developmental delays this week – primarily speech. It turns out she is on track in most developmental areas, except expressive language and socio-emotional development. The two areas are closely related, though. All our children were quite late to talk, so I’m not terribly concerned. Still, the baby was evaluated to have the verbal skills of a four month old, which is much more delayed than the other children were. It was a little discouraging to have the results broken down like that. However, she is so bright and capable in all other areas, that we are taking a “wait and see” approach, and declined to pursue an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) with the county.

In normal times, if we refused services we would have to get back in the cue and be re-evaluated down the line if she didn’t show developments progress. But given COVID times, the County Infants and Toddler program has a new system where you can check in with a case worker once a month and they will put together an IFSP when you feel ready for it. I perhaps tend towards the “low to no” intervention end of the scale, but I’m really grateful that the county provides these services for when we are ready.

The whole family went to get COVID tests again this week. It was probably not completely necessary, but we did it anyway. I took the two younger kids and had planned to go to the drive through testing site, tossing the baby into the car sans coat and shoes. Of course it was raining. And of course the drive through site wasn’t open. Change of plans! I took us all to a different testing site and had to carry the baby in without shoes or a coat. I definitely not one of my best moments, but oh well. We went in, got our nasal swabs – without fuss or crying from any of the littles! – and went home. Two days later:

Thank goodness.

We had quarantined the appropriate amount and then some, so we were pretty sure we would be negative. But it was reassuring to have the confirmations – if “not detected” can be counted as reassuring.

It’s been a slow emergence from quarantine. After almost three weeks of having gone no further than the end of the driveway on trash day, getting in the car was a little strange. I was almost reluctant to do even that, but I did have errands to run and the two older kids had their yearly check ups.

I was texting with a friend and saying how there is something nice about quarantining in that it’s been giving me an excuse to delay some bigger life decisions, and instead some days I’m just focussing on getting the family from meal to meal.. And my friend wrote back:
“I think what you are doing/ thinking makes total sense… See this thru w/ your family first and worry about anything else later.”
It is probably not sustainable – I mean I do have to file the taxes and figure out what I’m doing with my life, and we have some decisions to make about childcare and schooling and potential summer plans. I feel the the vaccine looming, like a pin that holds the dam in place, the deluge of decisions to be made roaring behind those floodgates.

Well… speaking of meal to meal…

What we ate:

Saturday: Tortellini with Sausage and Red Sauce. Cut up carrots and cucumbers on the side. With birthday cake.

Sunday: Oven Fried Chicken – the nine year old cooked, from the America’s Test Kitchen Young Chef’s cookbook. This was really really tasty – breaded with Corn Flakes. I made some garlic green beans to eat on the side.

Monday: Grain Bowl Marinara with Cannellini beans and Spinach from Mark Bittman’s Vegan Before 6 Cookbook.

Tuesday: Cauliflower Korma with burnt raisins from Fresh India. I found some chapatis in the freezer and we had these on the side.

Wednesday: Sausage and Peppers (the Husband cooked)

Thursday: Leftover Soup day. Realizing we had amasses many containers of leftovers in the fridge, I declared that we would have “eat down the fridge” dinner.

Friday: Pizza and The Peanuts Movie. I was going to make pizza, but then we had car issues so we ended up getting take out. The movie was fine, though I kind of missed the hand drawn charm of the original Charlie Brown movies.