The year got off to a slow reading start, but there were some really good books read:
Rosewood: A Midsummer Meet Cute by Sayantani DasGupta: Read this for the Mother/Daughter book club. It’s a YA modern day twist on Sense and Sensibility, set at a Jane Austen summer camp where the producer of a Bridgerton-esque show are scouting for extras. I’m always down for a Jane Austen adaptation, but I was actually a little confused when this book didn’t exactly follow the original source material. In the notes afterwards, the author said she didn’t want a faithful adaptation, so I guess that makes sense. I thought this book was fine, if a little improbable. The 12 year old said that the Pride and Prejudice adaptation was better – it’s called Debating Darcy and set on a high school debate team. I’m intrigued.
The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope, read by Shayna Small: Whenever I’m looking for an audiobook recommendation, I look on the Audie awards page and see if anything jumps out at me. This one definitely did. It’s a historical fantasy heist novel set in Washington D.C among the world of the 1920’s Black elite. Clara can talk to spirits, but is deeply indebted to one in particular. When she gets a chance to win her freedom by stealing a piece of jewelry, she assembles a team of misfits with supernatural talents to help her. I thought this was a pretty fantastic book – the historical elements were fascinating to me, especially since it was set in DC, and the story itself was well paced and engrossing. The story is inspired by the true account of a Black teenager who shot a white police officer during race riots in 1919. The audio of this book was pretty stunning, with Small embodying each person with a distinctness that made it easy to to keep track. I thought overall this book was pretty terrific, and I even borrowed the book and read chunks of it since I liked the audio so much.
Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis: I stayed up late to finish this book by Canadian author Willis. It’s about Amber, who enters a reality show to compete for a spot on a mission to Mars funded by a tech billionaire. Meanwhile, her long term, slightly stoner boyfriend Kevin stays behind in their home in Vancouver, trying to keep their hydroponic weed business afloat while watching Amber on TV and wondering how to navigate life without her. This book starts out with a breezy satirical tone, but as it progresses, it asks some deep and probing questions about relationships, wealth, fame, and the ethics of science and exploration and reality television. I thought this book was beautifully written and really engrossing, though the end was heart-breaking. ‘
The Measure by Nikki Erlick, read by Julia Whelan: I 90% picked up this book because Julia Whelan was narrating the audiobook. (The other 10% was because I saw Stephany recommend it.). The premise of the book does make one ponder – one day everyone in the world over the age of 22 receives a box with a string inside. Come to discover that the string corresponds to the length of your life. This sets off a host of repercussions as people (and society at large) grapple with whether or not to open the boxes and what to do with the information inside. The book specifically follows the lives of several different people as they learn to live with this new world of strings. I don’t think you can read the novel and not think about what you would do yourself if you knew how long you had to live. There was something about this book that made it feel like it was an expanded fable rather than a novel for me. Can’t quite put my finger on what that is – it reminded me a little of The Midnight Library where it felt like the author was trying to force the reader to ponder their own life choices. Despite that, I really liked the characters and the way the stories intertwined, and I just might have cried at one point in the book. As always, though, Julia Whelan made this a really great listening experience.
On my Proverbial Night Stand: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante – for Cool Bloggers Book Club. I’m way behind, but very intrigued by where this book is going.
The Marquis who Musn’t – Historical romance by Courtney Milan. Love her books.
One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus – Mother Daughter Book club book, chosen by the 12 year old.
Black Ghosts by Noo Saro-Wiwa – non-fiction about the history of Black people in China.
and a couple of other things that I’m a few pages into so I’m not sure if they will stick…
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.
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!
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.
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.
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 byRenier 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.
The 11 year old had her 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony. The Husband and I both went. Oh my goodness. There might have been some tears. You know, those happy tears of, “Wasn’t she just a little baby? and I can’t believe that she’s made it all the way through elementary school! and She’s growing up and moving forward and I can’t always be there for her!” You know, that kind of stuff. Man, if I’m this blubbering mess at her elementary school promotion ceremony, I can’t imagine what kind of mess I’ll be as she gets older. I can’t believe that I will have at least two more Promotion/Graduation ceremonies to go though for this kid. More, if she finished college. And I’ll also have to go through this with the two other kids.
There were so many nice touches to the ceremony. The Principal reminding the students to “Find your superpower and always always always remember to be kind.” And then reminding them that they will always be a Sea Turtle (the school mascot). (okay – I might be tearing up remembering that bit.) As each student’s name was read out, the teacher also read a quote by the student – things like favorite memories, advice, hopes for the world. Some of my favorites: “The world would be a more awesome place if there were more male teachers.” “My advice for kindergarteners would be to enjoy recess because you don’t have it in middle school.” “I will always remember to dial in”
There were also a lot of kids who mentioned their friends and teachers in their quote. It made me realize that even though learning is important, what really makes an impact are the friendship and human connections that the kids make – the people who make a child feel seen and heard. I feel like the 11 year old was fortunately place in the pandemic timeline – she had three years of in person learning before the pandemic and then she had a year and a half of in person learning afterwards. While the year of virtual learning was certainly disruptive, she could start and end elementary school surrounded by people and not online.
At the end of the ceremony, the school has a “clap out” where all the other grades line the hallways and the 5th graders walk by every classroom and high five all the other students. And it ended with cake. Then lots of pictures and good-byes and some phone numbers exchanged for future playdates.
That was the big event for the week.
One last picture by her locker.
Last Day of School!
Comparison: First Day of School!
Well, actually only one kid went to school on the Last Day of School. The 11 year old stayed home – the principal said that no one expected fifth graders to show up on the last half day. And the 3 year old had the day off for teachers in service. She actually is quite confused as to why she still has to go to school/ daycare this summer while her siblings don’t. The six year old went to his last day of kindergarten. Whew. We made it.
Other fun things:
This snapshot of life moment: The two younger kids were playing together, while I wrapped a few things up before I took them to a pool. Then I hear the 6 year old say to the 3 year old , “You need a stick! Go get a stick!” And the three year old runs into the kitchen and grabs a chopstick. Now whenever my kids grab sticks, some spidey sense tells me to be a little wary. “What do you need a stick for?” I asked. “To wave it!” I follow them to the living room, and this is what I saw:
The three year old “conducting” while the six year old “plays”. It delighted me to my music loving heart!
For Better of For Worse:
I found this battered copy of a For Better or For Worse volume in a Little Free Library and immediately snatched it up. I grew up reading Lynn Johnston’s comic strip For Better or For Worse in my local newspaper. The family structure was very similar to my own – mom, dad, older brother, younger sister. And the younger sister was about my age as the strip progressed. I always found it so relatable – just an ordinary family and the gentle ironies of life. Johnston has such a gift for seeing the humour in the mundane. There are certain strips that have always stuck in my head. The one where the mother responds to the father’s complaint of the kids dog-earing books, by saying, “At last they are reading!” has always stayed with me.
The 11 year old has also been reading this slim volume and one day she showed me the page where pre-teen Elizabeth is in a prickly foul mood, slamming doors and growling at her parents, but then at the end of the day asks her mom for a hug. “Sometimes,” the 11 year old says to me, “That’s how I feel.” I just wanted to give her all the hugs.
This yummy breakfast: One day the kids wanted oatmeal for breakfast, which isn’t something we have a lot in the summer. They had frozen blueberries and maple syrup on theirs. I wanted a savory version, so I had eggs, ume plum vinegar, sesame oil, cilantro, and chili bamboo shoots on mine. Kind of like congee. I love chili bamboo shoots; I could eat them right out of the jar. But it’s one of those foods that I always forget that I like so I don’t have it too often. On the side, mango with tajin.
Lychees – I went to HMart for groceries the other day, and when I came home I realized that I have three versions of lychees:
There is my favorite Japanese gummy candy, then canned lychee because there is a lychee ice cream recipe that I want to try to make, and then fresh lychee, which we very rarely get, so I always buy some if I see them and they look good. I guess lychees are my favorite fruit! They are so sweet and juicy and have a nice chew to them that it’s just a really perfect eating experience for me. I’m sure the rarity makes them even more special too. They actually had lychees at Costco last week, but those aren’t as sweet at the ones from HMart.
Grateful for: – My health. I’ve met a lot of people these past few weeks who are dealing with chronic health conditions, and I’ve been feeling really grateful that thanks mainly to genetics and good luck, I’ve always felt very good in my body. It’s also made me realize that medicine is not an exact science – my friends have gone through a battery of tests and visited many doctors and basically get a diagnosis of “Yup, you feel tired/have migraines/inexplicably vomit…” How mentally exhausting that must be, on top of not feeling physically well! I don’t want to come across a smug, but I’m realizing that I can’t take my ability to function without pain or discomfort for granted, especially as I get older. Health issues can be so mysterious and I could very well develop a chronic issue at anytime, so I’m grateful for every day that I’m healthy.
– The 11 year old’s elementary school and especially the staff and teacher. I had so many doubts about having the 11 year old switch schools for 5th grade. Clearly the partial Immersion program that she was in was not serving her well, but was a new school really the answer? What if she didn’t like the school? What if the kids at the new school were just as mean as the kids at the old school? Is it too big of an adjustment to make for the last year of elementary school? But it was absolutely the right decision, and honestly, one that we should have made sooner. The principal runs the school with the authoritative air of a benevolent ruler – a firm and kind man. The office staff is always happy to see people come in; they never act as if you’re being a bother. And the teachers all want to help kids learn and do well. This is our fourth elementary school experience and I’ll say that I didn’t find these things everywhere. The 11 year old found her spot and friends and one fun thing at the promotion ceremony was meeting all the people whom she connected with over the school year.
-The nice weather and the air clearing up. Luckily we only had about two days of really bad air here in the DC area, but then things were back to normal. With this week being tech week, I’m in the theatre at lot, and I haven’t been getting out to run. But I’m grateful that when I do get breaks, there is balmy weather- not quite grossly humid – and sunshine and shade and lush summer green for me to enjoy.
The trail near my house.
Looking Forward To: So the Husband has taken all three kids on trip. I’ve had to stay home because I’m working this week. It seems so luxurious to have the whole house to myself. These are things I’m looking forward to – Reading! I went to the library last week on my day off and got a whole stack of books. I’m inspired by Coco who has been spending hours reading in the morning while her family is away!
library stack
– Cooking! I am going to cook and eat all the things that I don’t often get to cook when the family is at home – cauliflower, bok choy, fried rice, lots of vegetables. Tempeh. This is a big one. I’ve had tempeh in the fridge for longer than I care to admit, but no one likes tempeh. That’s not true, quite – no one likes the idea of tempeh, so I never make it. (They’re fine when I do finally make it but sometimes it’s not worth listening to the grousing). Also all the things that I want to eat, but the kids eat before I get to it. Like lychees.
Library cookbook stack
– Cleaning out the guest room. This is my big “To Do” item while home by myself. We have family coming to visit in July and currently the guest room is clothes storage. I need to organize and put the clothes in bins and then put the clothes in the attic.
-Blog – finish my Amsterdam recaps.
-And then also all the other life admin stuff – camp forms, pay the bills, etc. I know this doesn’t really go on a “Looking forward to” list… but I’m looking forward to doing it without having a kid come up and interrupt me.
What We Ate – I still feel like every night I’ve had some variation of this conversation with the Husband: Him: What can I make for dinner? Me: Well there’s x, y, and z in the fridge. Him: What can I do with that? Me: … spits ball some complicated ideas. Him: We’ll just have eggs.
In truth, he’s doing a great job of keeping the kids fed as I work into the evening. But I look forward to being able to meal plan again some day:
Saturday: Pizza and movie night – School of Rock.
Sunday: Camp food with friends. Our friends had bought a new camp stove and wanted to try it out, so we went on a hike and then they made dinner at the end. Rice and Beans with Sausage and vegetables – they had dehydrated okra and tomatoes and added that. It was really tasty. There was mac and cheese and broccoli rice for the kids.
Monday: Pork chops with gravy and green beans. The Husband cooked. This is the kind of Midwestern meal he makes without a receipe.
Tuesday: Zucchini Boats – the Husband cooked. We seem to eat these a lot, but it’s a good way to get vegetables into the kids.
Wednesday: Breakfast sandwiches.
Thursday: Turkey Chili – I made before heading off to work. This was one of those really satisfying meals to make in that I got to use up lots of leftovers and clean out the fridge a little. I used the leftover zucchini boat filling (ground turkey) and tossed it in in Instant Pot with leftover turkey burgers, a can of crushed tomatoes, celery, carrots, onions, corn, black beans and chili powder and cumin. It was really tasty and I had the leftovers in wraps for lunch all week.
Friday: Sandwiches at the Golf Course. The Summer music series has started at the local golf course – so many a Fridays we just grab sandwiches from the deli and head there with our lawn chairs and picnic blankets. Even when we don’t plan to go with friends, we almost always run into someone we know.
Saturday: Pizza and movie night. It was my turn to choose and I chose The Queen of Katwe, a 2016 movie based on the true story of a chess prodigy living in the slums of Kampala, Uganda. I’m trying to find more family movies that aren’t animated and I really enjoyed this one. The story is by turns inspirational and dramatic and eye-opening.
Monday: Turkey Chili leftovers
Tuesday: Grilled Tofu and Tomatoes – the husband made this from the Green Barbeque Cookbook, a book of vegan and vegetarian recipes to make on the grill. It was very tasty. Vegan.
Wednesday: Eggs and Green Beans. The Husband cooked.
Thursday: Cucumber and Black Bean Noodle Salad from To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon. This was really tasty and went over pretty well with the kids, though one kid only at the veggies and one kid only ate the noodles. The dressing base is fermented black bean sauce, one of my favorite ingredients. I added green beans and five spice tofu to bulk it up. Vegan.
Friday: Leftovers for me. Not quite sure what the Husband and kids did.
We are home from our spring break trip! Where we went:
Recaps to come. I hope. I still think I want to write recaps from our Montreal Trip too, so clearly I am behind.
But a quick rundown of the week before, since I selfishly like having these accounting of my days…
It was a week off of work, which was great because I could get some last minute errands and pre-trip things done.
some Highlights: – Going for a cherry blossom run. I had always heard that the Kenwood neighborhood also has beautiful cherry blossoms, and it was less crowded than going to the Tidal Basin, so I thought I’d check it out. When I looked it up, I saw that there is a trail next to it, so I decided to combine my run with a cherry blossom wander. I parked at one of the lots off the trail that lead to the Kenwood neighborhood and had a little run then spent the rest of the morning wandering the streets. It was not as crowded as the Tidal Basin, so I felt like I was able to amble and savor at my own pace, though the blossoms in Kenwood are not the panoply of colors one sees downtown. It’s so interesting that this little neighborhood becomes such a cherry blossom hot spot. It was at the tail end of cherry blossom peak bloom and there was a light breeze, which sent cherry blossom petals drifting through the air and scattered on the roads.
cherry blossom arch!
Cherry blossom carpet.
-The six year old had a concert. The French Immersion students put on a concert every year, though apparently it hasn’t happened in a while because of the pandemic. Each class presents some kind of musical performance in French. The kindergartener show involved singing and dancing to a song about chocolate. I know I put on shows for a living, but I am seriously impressed by the coordination that it takes to organize 200+ kids to sing and dance in French. It’s always funny for me to go see school shows because there is a certain level of chaos that I would never see at my work, and yet… things always work out and people get onstage and offstage. I mean I just have to stage manage, but the teachers have to direct, choreograph, child wrangle, cajole, cheerlead… what full jobs they have… on top of the every day teaching.
The black light and fluorescent vests made me laugh.
– I got a discount on a book! I went to Barnes and Nobles to pick up a book for my flight. I usually like to read a book by someone from the country that I was visiting, so this is the one I chose:
Anyhow, as I was leafing through it, I noticed that the inside blurb page was upside down – you can see in the picture how the strip of the stepback is white and it should be red. I would have bought the book anyway because I wanted to read it and this gaffe wouldn’t have affected reading the book. But I took it to the front desk, pointed out the flaw, and they gave me 20% discount!
Giggle of the week – This sign, seen in the neighborhood, which abounds with Little Free Libraries:
I feel like the six year old would take advantage of that too.
Grateful For: – Public Transportation – I had lunch with a friend one day and I could take the metro there. It was just as fast as driving, but much more relaxing, and I could read my book a little. – A friend for lending me a suitcase. I was going to buy a new suitcase since the wheels of my carry on rolling suitcase have come apart. I’ve had that suitcase for almost twenty years, so I guess it was about time to replace it. But when we went to look at suitcases, I was so overwhelmed by the options and couldn’t pick one. Relating my suitcase woes to my friend, she said, “I have one that you can borrow!” So I did. It saved me money and it saved me the mental energy of having to choose a suitcase. Sometimes having something just given to me is even more perfect than having to choose it myself.
Ready to go!
-Time. Last week, I had more money than time, what with being unemployed and all. I think about this a lot. Sometimes when I’m unemployed I find my spending goes out of control because I finally have the time to browse/choose/buy those new shoes to replace the ones with holes that I have been making do with, or catch up on house projects, or refresh the kids’ wardrobes. I find when I’m thick in work, I don’t tend to throw money at things, rather I just decide to hobble through and replace things when I have time to think about it. But of course it means that I tend to have the time to spend money when I’m not making any money – which doesn’t even out as much as I would like. I suppose the answer, somewhat, is to increase my income. But also I think I should lean into thinking about how to spend time not money when I’m unemployed. Some things do need to be replaced, but maybe some things can be repaired? I sewed up a hole in a sweater that I wanted to take for vacation rather than buying a new one. And also – I went on the abovementioned run to see the cherry blossoms in Kenwood. It’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t have had time to do while working, but when I don’t have to be in at work, I can do these things. I can use time to buy moments of beauty. I can use time to buy moments of connection, like when I have lunch with friends. (Okay, also it took money to pay for lunch, but we could have just as easily gone for a walk and visit, or she could have come over for tea… the food wasn’t the important part.) Anyhow… when I’m feeling money poor and time rich, maybe I need to think about the things that time can buy me. On that note, I realize how lucky I am that I do have time – there are many people who have neither time nor money and that must be so stressful and hard.
What We Ate:
Monday: Chickpea noodle soup from Vegan for Everyone by America’s Test Kitchen. The six year old wanted veggie soup and I had celery to use up- I feel like I make this a lot when those two boxes need to be checked. Vegan.
Tuesday: Waffles. Quick dinner before the six year old’s school concert. I had heard a hack earlier this year of measuring two batches of dry ingredients when you make/bake something so that you just have to add the wet ingredients later on for a second batch. I thought this brilliant so last time I made waffles, I measured a second portion of the dry ingredients into a container and put it in the pantry. When I needed a quick dinner this night, I just tossed in the wet ingredients and everything was came together super quickly. I know measuring the dry ingredients doesn’t take that much time, but when you factor in finding things, hauling it out, measuring, and then putting it back away… to be able to just dump it in a bowl… pre-making the dry ingredients has the ease as if we were making our favorite waffle recipe from a box mix.
Wednesday: Dinner out with friends from out of town. I had pasta with mushrooms. There was parker house rolls with bacon jam involved.
Random book habit though this month: After I finish a book, I will go back and re-read the first two or three chapters again. I find by the time I get to the end of a book, I often don’t remember the first few chapters, and I like to remind myself how the story starts; there are often details that pop out at me that I hadn’t noticed before, but which feel richer having read the whole book. Often the characters have changed or grown, so it’s fun to see what they were like at the beginning. I very rarely re-read entire books, though. What about you?
Would Like To MeetbyRachel Winters– This was a cute but ridiculous romance-ish novel that the I picked up because the 11 year old found it at the Little Free Library at the pool, and I jokingly said, “We should have a book club!” So she read it and then handed it to me. The premise: Evie works as an assistant to an agent whose major (only) client is an Oscar winning screenwriter who is behind on delivering a script for a rom com. The screenwriter has writer’s block because he thinks romantic comedies are unbelievable, so Evie decides to show him that the “meet cute” really does exist by attempting to have a “meet cute.” Hijinks ensue. This is a decidedly mediocre yet amusing romance novel. Evie is a bit too much of a door mat for my liking, but her friends are fun and the meet cutes that she engineers have their own charm.
Dante and Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, read by Lin Manuel Miranda – Truth, I chose this audio book because it was narrated by Lin Manuel Miranda. This YA novel tells the story about Ari, who can’t swim, and Dante whom he meets at a pool, and who offers to teach him. Over the course of a summer and the following school years, the two Mexican-American teenagers develop a deep friendship that grows into more. It’s the kind of book that meanders along, much like life, until something really dramatic happens, then people pick up the pieces and try to keep moving forward. I thought it really captured the inertia of the teen years – the way that things often seem like they won’t ever change then life turns a corner and suddenly things will never be the same. There were some pacing issues with the book, but I did love all the characters, especially Dante who was kind of quirky and unselfconsciously so.
I’m only Wicked with You by Julie Ann Long – I really enjoyed Long’s Pennyroyal Green series. This is the latest in her Palace of Rogues series. I thought the ending had everything I love in a romance novel ending, but the rest of the book took a looooong time to get there. Forced marriage isn’t my favorite romance novel trope and when two characters spend too much time not liking each other, I get impatient. I mean I like witty banter as much as the next person, but a lot of the banter in the first part of the book was just caustic and mean. Once the two main characters started getting along and liking each other, I really started to enjoy this book.
My Plain Jane By Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows, and Cynthia Hand– I picked this up because I found the first book of this series, My Lady Jane, really charming and was eager for more of the same. Like My Lady Jane, My Plain Jane is a retelling of a known story (Jane Eyre) with some twists, turns, and magical elements. This novel features Charlotte Bronte and her good friend Jane Eyre as ghost hunters, and the plot revolves around the secret society they come to work for. I thought the book was really clever; the authors did not shy away from the problematic issues of the original source material; explaining the whole “How does the 19 year old fall in love with a manipulative man twice her age, and who is that in the attic?” is actually the backbone of the story. Even still, this book was very chaotic with huge plot holes and coincidences galore that I just found ridiculous after a while. Reading this book made me realize that one thing I loved about My Lady Jane was the audio book narrator – I just didn’t have the right dry witty tone in my head when I read My Plain Jane to myself.
Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh – Surprisingly funny book about lives that intersect, either directly or indirectly, around a Boston abortion clinic. I thought the character portraits of people on both side of the abortion debate were really shrewdly drawn, and I was really sucked into the lives of these character who all were just trying to do the right thing. The anti-abortion protesters seemed like caricatures in their dogmatic beliefs, almost to the point where I felt like that portrait was perhaps a little unfair. The book is not an unbiased view, of course. The main character, Claudia, has worked in the abortion clinic for years and even as she is worn down by the job, she still does it because she believes it’s essential work in a world that is stacked against women. At one point, one character says, that he has no problem with abortion, “as long as there’s a good reason.” And Claudia replies, “There’s always a good reason.”
I have two little things that bothered me about the book – one is that the book felt like a very white telling of the abortion debate – totally understandable because Haigh is a white author, so I don’t know that I should have expected otherwise. I just felt like there was a whole side and demographic missing from how abortion services are vital in this country. The other tick was a stylistic quirk where characters often loose track of time and it would repeatedly be, “months or days”, “after an hour or a month…” etc. Those are the only two I highlighted, but it recurred many times to the point of irking me.
Anyhow, some other passages of note:
“Bring in your pelvis for its twelve-month check up. Failure to perform scheduled maintenance may void warranty.” – made me laugh out loud. Yeah, I feel like that some days. Like the body is a machine and I’m not following the manual correctly.
“Baby Doe had been a person, a little girl who felt love ad joy, who delighted in her pink leggings and giggled when her toenails were painted and who, in the end, felt shock and fear and betrayal and pain. As a fetus she’d been protected by Massachusetts law, the twenty-four week cutoff. As a person she was utterly dependent on a woman who couldn’t raise her and didn’t want to. Once she became and actual person, by Doe was on her own.” I think this is one of the things that frustrates me so much about the abortion debate- people need to be cared for throughout life, yet the resources just aren’t there.
“Deb raised other people’s kids because it was one of only a few things she could earn money doing. The world was full of discarded people, sickly old ones and damaged young ones, and she was a paid caretaker. It said something about the world that this was the worst-paying job around.” – yeah this goes hand in hand with the quote above.
“Married life was like walking around in shoes that almost fit. She wore them every day for two years, and still they gave her blisters. Like most shoes designed for women, they were not foot-shaped.” So when married life gives you blisters – do you get new shoes or just put on some moleskin?
Some picture books that we enjoyed this month (inspired by how Lisa always includes picture books in her reading recaps!) :
Off Limits by Helen Yoon – this was a re-read about working from home. It’s cute and a lot of fun and the kids (and I) totally relate to it, particularly the scene where the child strews Post-It notes alllllll over the room.
The Barnabus Project by the Fan Brothers – This book is about a bunch of misfit toys that escape their confines. It’s a gripping adventure story, and I wish I could find more picture books that had this kind of large scale adventure element to them.
Otis and the Scarecrow by Loren Long – We are new to the Otis the Tractor series – where have we been this whole time? This book had a charming relaxed feel, and I really liked the message about accepting people in all their moods.
Over and Under the Canyon by Kate Messner, art by Christopher Silas Neal – We love this whole series of books – each book takes a deep look at one habitat in nature. The prose is calm and soothing, just like a nature ramble should be. The first one was Up in the Garden, Down the the Dirt, is still probably our favorite.
On my (Proverbial) Night Stand – for some reason I have a lot of books in progress right now, though three of those are ongoing reading projects.
The Brontes – Still plugging away. The drama and understatement of village life is riveting.
Braiding Sweetgrass – The next chapter is quite long so I’m saving it for when I can sit and read it in one go.
Interior Chinatown by Charles Wu – novel set in Hollywood about a struggling Taiwanese actor. It feels especially relevant when Everything Everywhere All at Once swept the Oscars.
Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jabar – Amani, a divorced poet, accompanies her father to his homeland of Jordan. So far it’s family secrets and some beautifully descriptive writing about life in Jordan.
What the Fresh Hell Is This by Heather Corinna – still working my way through this book on perimenopause too.
Stay True by Hua Hsu – Memoir about growing up as Asian Americans in America. My father recommended this book to me, and then I heard Hsu give an interview on Fresh Air and thought he said some very thoughtful things.
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine – the next “book club” book with the 11 year old.
Okay, I literally wrote “January 2022” at the top of this post. When does it sink in? I once read a trick of pre-writing the new year on the first ten checks in your check book – I thought that was a pretty neat hack.
The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman – I’m not sure what Chuck Klosterman is. I mean googling him, he is defined as a “writer and essayist”. I think of him as a cultural critic, though I’m not sure what the qualifications are for that. Anyhow, this book is a collection of essays dissecting the 1990s from a cultural standpoint. I picked it up because I’m always interested in what people say about the times I’ve experienced. Klosterman looks at the decade through the lens of media, the internet, politics, sports, film and other things that were in the public conversation at the time. Klosterman is a cis-gender white male, and that was definitely in the back of my mind as I read the book; while there were some really keen observations in the book, I couldn’t help but to think that there were huge swaths of the American experience in the 1990s that was missing from the book. To be fair, he does acknowledge that his viewpoint is rather specific (as would anyone’s viewpoint be.). There is also a huge amount of snobbery in this book – for example, he skewers Titanic as a movie without merit, which dismisses the pleasure of watching a popcorn movie for the thrill of the moment. (He writes, “Yet the single most interesting thing about Titanic is its total commitment to expressing nothing that could be construed as interesting, now or then.” I mean I think a huge ocean liner sinking is pretty fascinating myself). All that notwithstanding, I thought there were some really thoughtful things going on in this book about how we (or at least the “we” that have the luxury of an examined life) live and think about our place in the world. Some food for thought: Most of the time, the skewed recollections [of our conversations] dwell on pop cultural ephemera – the precise spellings of minor consumer products, iconic lines of dialogues that are both famous and incorrect, and the popularity of a children’s movie staring the comedian Sindbad that does not exits. The most unhinged explanation for this phenomenon involves quantum mechanics and the possibility of alternative realities; the most rational explanation is that most of these memories were generated by people of the early nineties, a period when the obsession with popular culture exponentially increased without the aid of a mechanism that remembered everything automatically. One of Klosterman’s points in the book is about how the 90s was the last decade when it was okay not to know something, to live with the uncertainty since we couldn’t immediately fact check everything. Once we could easily Google things on our phone, being correct became much more standard and expected. This thought made me think about the benefits of living in uncertainty – of being okay with knowing that you don’t really know if something is 100% correct. It seems like it would be hard and freeing at the same time.
In the nineties, when a semi-educated young person was asked to identify the root cause of most American problems, the probably answer would not have been capitalism. The more likely response would have been commercialism. … The problem of commercialism is the motive, and that can be recognized in how the thing is packaged. This differs from a hatred of capitalism, where the problem is the thing. I thought this an interesting point. He explains that it’s the difference between hating Christmas and hating Christmas Carols played before Thanksgiving. But again, also his elitism is showing because what does “semi-educated” mean anyway?
The Death of VivekOjiby Akwaeke Emezi – Set in present day Nigeria, this novel is centered around Vivek Oji, who he was, how he died and the community surrounding him. I wasn’t expecting a mystery novel when I picked it up, but that’s what it evolved to be. I think the relationships of the people in this novel was my favorite part. Vivek was part of a large, loving, and complicated community and I loved how everyone loved Vivek in their own way. His mother, in particular, in her tenacity to find out the truth of her son’s death, was heartbreaking. The writing is beautiful, almost poetic, and so immersive. I went into the book not having read the “back” so it took me a while to see where the story was going. The chapters alternate viewpoints, some told in first person and some in third person and there were so many characters it was hard for me to follow the narrative thread. I think I would have liked this book much better if I could have sat down and read it all in one sitting because reading it a little at a time over several weeks just made it feel really disjointed.
The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun – Romance novel set in the world of a Bachelor-type reality show. Charlie, an awkward tech wizard whose career is in flames agrees to be the latest Prince Charming in order to rehab his reputation. Dev, one of the show’s producers is assigned to be Charlie’s handler. As Dev helps Charlie navigate the women vying for his hand, the two become close. I have to admit, I didn’t completely buy that Dev and Charlie could get so close (physically and emotionally) without *anyone* on the show figuring it out and calling them on it. (Well, no one did until about 3/4 of the way through the book.) Or that it took them so long to figure out their feelings for each other. But maybe that’s just a testament to how messed up it is to be on a reality tv show? The other thing I didn’t love was the way the women on the show were portrayed, at least initially. I get that when you have thirty women trying to win the same guy there are going to be some stereotypical girl fighting and cattiness, but all the contestants felt really two dimensional until it was down to the last few and even still, now I can’t remember a thing about them. Despite all that, I did enjoy this book a lot because of the romantic leads and the peek inside making a reality television show. Dev and Charlie were both really nice and sweet guys with believable emotional baggage to figure out, there was a good amount of tension and chemistry between them.
Any Other Family by Eleanor Brown – I felt like this book was similar to This is How it Always Is in that it’s a parenting fable disguised as a novel. It’s the story of three mothers linked by the fact that their adopted children all have the same birth mother. The families have gathered for a vacation and get the news that the birth mother is pregnant again, bringing up questions of if they should adopt the new child or find a new family. A lot of the book is about how people create their idea of family. Each chapter alternates being told from a different woman’s point of view, which really highlights how one’s outward appearance can belie that doubts and anxieties within. I really liked that aspect of the book – the person who seems to all have it together in one chapter is seen to be barely holding on inside in the next, and how no one sees one’s flaws as deeply as oneself. Even still, I feel like between this book and This Is How It Always Is and The School For Good Mothers, I’m a little tapped out on “the difficulties of mothering” novels for a while. It was well written and very readable, but I just need a break from tales of exhausted mothers.
Lots of passages of note: Violet wakes up. Elizabeth closes her eyes to pray for strength, then open them and forces a smile onto her face. “Hello, sweet girl,’ she says, pretending to be the cheerful mother she knows she ought to be, and the the withered thirty-something husk of a woman who hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in far too long. Violet begins to wail. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Yup.
“Look. Things change. This is a fact of life. But you have survived one hundred percent of the changes in your life so far, which means the odds are high you’re going to survive whatever comes next, even if you don’t know what it is right now.” One character says this to her rising middle-schooler. I need to file this away to say to my kids some day.
“The thing is, you’re going to be a lot of different mothers over the course of Violet’s life. It could be that you don’t like being this mother this infant mother, and no one would blame you for that, not a bit. it’s really hard. They’re energy vampire, and they take so much and give so little. But it won’t always be this way. She’ll be Tate and Taylor’s age and Phoebe’s age, and you’ll be the mom she needs then, and you’ll like some of those stages a whole lot more, and some of them probably less. None of this is written in stone. There’s no finish line in parenting, no end to it. We just have to be in it with them the whole time.” It’s stuff like this that makes this book feel like a parenting manifesto disguised as a novel. There is a lot of wisdom to it, though.
On My Proverbial Night Stand Currently…
The Brontes – Still. Charlotte Bronte is now in her late teens. I had a moment of pause when I realized that she is already halfway through her short life.
My Plain Jane – A twist on Jane Eyre written by the team that wrote My Lady Jane. Amusing so far, though a little chaotic. Fun to read in conjunction with the Bronte biography.
Braiding Sweetgrass – Reading a little bit at a time. This week, I highlighted this passage: “The marvel of a basket is in its transformation, its journey from wholeness as a living plant to fragmented strands and back to wholeness again as a basket. A basket knows the dual powers of destruction and creation that shape the world. Strands once separated are rewoven into a new whole. The journey of a basket is also the journey of a people.”
What the Fresh Hell Is This? Perimenopause, Menopause, other Indignities, and You – Because I turned 40 and then thought… gosh I wonder what’s next. (I did read, and didn’t love, The Menopause Manifesto, so I’m interested if this take on the issue will resonate with me any more…)
I’m Only Wicked With You – Romance novel by Julie Anne Long, part of her Palace of Rogues series. Not loving it as much as the first two books in the series but not hating it enough to quit quite yet.
This month I made it to 52 books read. My goal for this year is 60 books, which I think is within reach. But also, I don’t want to just speed through a bunch of short books for the sake of hitting that goal. I’ve decided I want to spend the winter wrapped in a blanket, sipping tea, and reading very lengthy tomes. Preferably in hardback. Suggestions welcome!
The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray – A Jane Austen inspired murder mystery that features the characters from Austen’s novels gathering for a house party at the house of Emma and Mr. Knightly. Marianne and Colonel Brandon are among the guests, as well as Lizzie Bennett (now Mrs. Darcy) and Mr. Darcy and their son. This book is so cleverly put together. It was a light and fun read and I really enjoyed reading about life after “happily ever after” for each of the couples. Gray has clearly thought through how each couple’s marriage plays out and the relationships she portrays feel entirely in keeping with the characters that Austen created. It was kind of like reading really good fan fiction, and I mean that as a total compliment. I will say, I felt that the actual murder plot was not entirely convincing, but then again, I don’t know that that was entirely the point of the book.
The Hate U Giveby Angie Thomas – 2017 YA novel about sixteen year old Starr, a black teenager who witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend by a police officer. Starr goes to a private prep school in the suburbs, worlds away from the gritty neighborhood she lives in, and has become adept at navigating two worlds. The novel deals with how she deals with the aftermath of the shooting, wanting to do the right thing but afraid of the fallout for her community and for her family and for her very own life. I thought this book was really riveting and I stayed up late to finish it. Clearly all the accolades it has received are well deserved. I think my one quibble was with Starr’s white boyfriend from her fancy prep school; he often comes off as the token good white guy who integrates seamlessly into Starr’s life in a White Savior kind of way.
Mother Trucker: Finding Joy On the Loneliest Road in America by Amy Butcher – Butcher, a writer and professor in an emotionally abusive relationship, seeks out Joy “Mothertrucker” Weibe after discovering her on Instagram. Weibe is the only female ice trucker in Alaska, and Butcher is drawn to her seemingly independent and bad ass life. So Butcher contacts Weibe and asks to come visit and ride along with her as she drives up Dalton Highway, a remote and dangerous dirt and gravel road in Alaska. To be honest, I thought this book was going to be a profile on Weibe, or some kind of adventure travelogue. In the end, though, the book was more about Butcher herself and her journey to turn her life around – kind of like Wild, but with Joy “Mothertrucker” standing in for the Pacific Crest Trail as the catalyst for self discovery. That aspect I found a little disappointing because I really wanted to get a deep dive into Joy and life as an ice trucker, and instead she comes across as some kind of mystical wise woman. Still, there are some great details about what it is like to drive the Dalton Highway and there is a lot of brutally honest writing in this book about relationships and abuse. (So warning on that)
The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud, PhD, and Ned Johnson – I read Stixrud and Johnsons’ book “What Do You Say” earlier this year and found their scripts for parenting really helpful. The Self-Driven Child is their first book, and I would say it focusses less on scripts, but more on the science and strategies of how a parent fits into the life of their child, namely as a consultant and coach rather than as a dictator. Their book is based in a combination of brain science and real life experience through their work as a tutor/test prep instructor (Johnson) and a clinical psychologist (Stixrud). The book is well organized with tangible action steps at the end of each chapter, which I really liked. So often parenting books are all about theory and ideas but don’t give parents concrete steps they can do with their children I made so many highlights in this book that I feel as if I should just get my own copy. Some good things to remember: – “If you act as if it’s your job to see that your child does his homework, practices the piano, or plays a sport, you reinforce the mistaken belief that somebody other than he is responsible for getting his work done. He doesn’t have to think about it because, on some level, he knows that eventually someone will “make” him do it.” Such a good reminder that being overly involved does not serve your child well. – “Kids need responsibility more than they deserve it” – this one is a hard one for me, but makes sense upon reflection. I always thought that kids earned responsibility, but the book indicates that they have to grow into it and they can’t grow into it unless given the chance to do it. – “He began to suggest to parents that they make enjoying their kids their top priority so that their kids would have the experience of being joy-producing organisms.” I forget this one a lot. I just don’t enjoy my kids a lot of the time… and that shouldn’t be their problem. I definitely need to work on this one. Kids need to know that their value is not in their quantifiable achievements. – “But you’re in it with your kids for the long-haul, and part of being a parent is standing on the sidelines sometimes so that they can return to you for a hug and pep talk before going back out there. That’s where it’s most important for you to stand. So stand tall, don’t forget to cheer, and at the end of the day, remind them that you care much more about them than any stupid test score.”
You Can’t Be Serious by Kal Penn (audiobook read by Kal Penn) – Kal Penn is known for many things, but for me he will first and foremost be Kumar from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I thought his memoir really fantastic, full of anecdotes from his time both as an actor and as an Obama staffer. He comes across as a really intelligent and thoughtful person. Because I myself went into a career that isn’t the most traditional one for Asian Americans, I always like hearing of other Asian Americans who went into non-traditional careers. What really struck me, though, was not just the anecdotes, but the really honest way he talks about being an Indian American in Hollywood. He does not shy away from calling out the racism that he encountered over and over again. From constantly being told that something would be funnier if he could do it with and accent (“What kind of accent? Scottish? Irish? Southern?” he would slyly ask.), to going up for an audition for an Indian character and the other person reading for the role being a white person in brown face, and many many more. And then, amazingly, he gets involved in politics and works in the White House for two years. The stories of his time on the campaign trail and in the Obama White House are really inspiring – full of such great details, but also a reminder of what a hopeful and decent time the Obama administration was. All in all I really enjoyed this book – it made me laugh out out, gasp with outrage, and warmed my heart.
