Tag: family movie night

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Hello November, Good-bye October

It was a gorgeous fall weekend here. The skies blue and bright, the trees decked out in their best autumn colours. Unfortunately I spent most of the weekend indoors working. I had surtitles to prep for an upcoming recital and then we had opening night. And then I spent all of Sunday prepping more titles, and a good chunk of Monday too.

As opening nights go, it was a wowzer doozy of an opening night. I can’t share any of the details because what made it so memorable were some personal stories of those around me. Rest assured, all is well, everyone is healthy, the show went smoothly (except for an incident where two singers couldn’t agree on what to use for the fake whiskey onstage… Yes, these are the things I have to navigate – do you want iced tea? apple juice? coloured water? And EVERYONE HAS TO AGREE because you all have to drink it onstage. They couldn’t agree). Suffice to say, the season opening of our 2026-2027 opera season will go down in memory, but not for what happened onstage.

Afterwards there was a reception with speeches and drinks. I chatted with some folks then decided to go back to the office and do some work. There were artist meals left out for those of us who were performing or working the show, which was nice because I was HUNGRY by the end of the night.

I didn’t get home until after 1am and then slept til 10am Sunday morning. Which is unheard of. I’ve never slept that late before. The house was quiet when I got up, the Husband having taken the 7 year old to Faith Formation. My cousin and her boyfriend were visiting for an overnight. When they got up, we chatted for a little bit then it was off to the usual weekend barrage of lessons an birthday parties.

We are almost halfway through November, but I wanted to write my October recap so here were go….

October Highlights:
-Rehearsing/ tech-ing a new show in a new venue with an old friend. The director of this opera is someone I’ve known for over twenty years. We first worked together in San Diego when I was a baby Assistant Stage Manager and she was a baby Assistant Director. And now she is the Artistic Director of her own opera company and I’m the head of the stage management department of my home opera company. I knew from the first time I worked with her that she was going to do amazing things – she is just such a talented director, but also very practical and hard working. I work in an industry where the attrition rate is pretty high, so I really treasure when I am reunited with colleagues from my early opera years.

-Seeing Come From Away with the Husband.

-Contra dancing with the family.

-Hallowe’en and making the kids’ costumes. I’m really proud of how the costumes turned out.

-bike rides to school with the kids.

-Cool Blogger’s Walking Club (Thanks, Elisabeth for hosting! I still have one recap to do…) and Cool Blogger’s Book Club (Thanks, Engie for hosting! What a quirky book Convenience Store Woman was.)

-Beautiful autumn skies and sruprisingly warm weather.

-Not having to take the kids to piano lessons in the morning during tech week.

-Voting early.

-My cousin J came to visit.

-Did titles for a lovely recital which was a mix of popular songs and American art songs. This singer is singing with us next spring and I’m looking forward to working with him – he just seemed so down to earth and creative.

-checking my annual exam off my to do list.

-A bowl of Mushroom soup from the Thai place when I was feeling a little run down at work.

-A kid who I met when he and the 7 year old were in mommy-baby group together was cast in my show and it was so fun to see his mom/my friend and share a little of what I do with her.

-Soup Party at work. I was reading something today in my latest non-fiction read about how teams benefit from time together that is empty and not task-oriented. I thought the soup party was a great opportunity for that.

-Going to the local indoor pool with friends on a rainy Sunday afternoon. What a lovely gem. They need more family restrooms, though.

-Favorite Dinner Cooked: The Marry Me Chickpea Gnocchi Soup for the Work Soup Party. October was honestly a lot of dinners pulled from the freezer out of our asses.

-Favorite thing watched: Bridgerton Season 4. I didn’t love Season One, so I was on the fence about continuing, but An Offer from a Gentleman (the book season 4 is based on) is my second favorite book of the series (When He was Wicked is my favorite. Honestly, aside from those two books, I find the whole book series kind of meh – entertaining, but not particularly memorable.) I loved Season 4 – I thought Sophie and Benedict were so well cast and the romantic tension between the two of them was pitch perfect.

Goals and Habits:
-Painting: 0. I spent all my creative energy in October sewing Hallowe’en costumes.
-Crossword puzzle completed: 0
-Live Performances: 1 – Come From Away. There was also live music at the contra-dance. Does that count?
-Museums: 1. Ford’s Theatre, where Come From Away was playing is the theatre where Lincoln was shot, so the lower level is a museum all about Lincoln.
-Hike: 0. I’m doing terribly on hiking this year.
-Yoga: 26/31. Saturdays seem to be the hardest days for me to fit in a yoga routine. I think it’s because we have a family meeting at 7:45am, and I like to sleep in a little on Saturdays. I need to make a point to do an evening winddown on Saturday.
-Run: 4x (+4 bike rides )
-Strength: Hah! apparently 0 (My goal is 8x a month, but I’m finding it really hard to motivate myself for this one…i just need to find a consistent way to work it in)
-Vegan Dinners:4 (Goal is 4x a month, so yay!)

Quote of the Month:
“Gravity works 100% of the time.” – David Younts Train Engineer in the book Gig, on having to be careful and think ahead when guiding a train over mountainous terrain.

“Safe. Functional. Complete. Detailed.”
– I’m not sure who said this originally, but on of my Assistants said this as the stages of creating theatre; I think we were specifically taking about props. What they are saying is that, for example, you can’t obsess about the decorations on a prop knife if it is still too sharp for the singer to safely use in rehearsal. Or, a scenic unit needs to be secure and people need to be able to walk on it before you start giving notes about the facing needing to be attached, and even further down the line is the paint treatment. Hopefully by the time we move into the theatre things are at the complete stage, ready for the detailed stage.

October Lowlights:
-working a lot of evenings and not seeing the family much. I rarely saw the 14 year old – she leaves for the bus at 6:35am and is in bed by the time I got home. She’s also in a phase where her favorite place is her bed with her screen, so even when I am home I don’t see her too much out in the wild.

-The 14 year old not getting a part in the Children’s Chorus of the holiday opera I’m working on. She’s been in the children’s chorus two years in a row so she’s really disappointed that she didn’t get cast this year. I think it’s hard because she’s a good kid who does everything right – she goes to school, is generally kind and positive, she goes to her piano and voice lessons, she’s engaging onstage, and directors always have good things to say about her…. it’s hard when you do all the right things but you’re still not chosen. And you see other kids who were, honestly, kind of a pain in the ass to work with on past shows get a part. She is a soprano and I’m sure there were lots of sopranos who auditioned so it was going to be more competitive for her voice type. But still, it’s kind of a bummer.

-My mom crush bus driver got put on a different route. I’m going to miss his sweet smile every morning. (The new driver is very nice an friendly, but he’s just not the same. Also the new guy does not pull three point turns with the bus like the first driver does.)

-I had a lot of anxiety about the show and the new venue all through rehearsal process. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I see that the whole things came together beautifully, but the lead up, the unknown factors of being in a new venue – I spent three weeks doubting myself and that was pretty stressful.

Looking forward to in November:

-Doing titles for a recital (this happened last night and it was … well was memorable – more next week)

-Opening my show (this happened – see above).

-Sleep. I am so mentally and physically exhausted right now.

-reading books – I haven’t had a lot of time to read books yet this month, so want to make time to read more.

-the challenge of National Blog Posting Month. Thanks, San! I missed November 1st, but I’ve been doing okay for the first week. It’s been fun having new visitors here and also exploring new to me blogs to read.

-Running in crisp sunny fall weather. I don’t really like running, but fall is my favorite time to run if I have to run.

-Thanksgiving. Need to figure out where to find a duck and then how to roast it.

-Starting rehearsals for the Holiday opera at work.

-Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends.

-It’s Hallmark Holiday movie season! There was one just released, part of their Holiday Touchdown series, that is set in Chicago and features the Bears. Think I can make my Bears-loving Husband watch it?

Greateful For – the Tech Week Edition:

-Snacks. The snack situation was intense this tech week. Usually people will bring some candy or chips or something to share during tech week.

And this was towards the end when the snack supply was depleted.

-Rides home at night (I think I mentioned this last week, but it’s still true)

-Lumch boxes so I can pack food to eat while at work.

-The travel cutlery set that I got this summer from my summer gig. It lives in my lunch box and I always have cutlery when I need it. No more hunting for a fork. No more disposable silverware. It is really satisfying to just pull out my own set of cutlery during my meal breaks.

-Chai – the perfect pick me up between the metro and work.

-The Husband, who drove kids around, cooked dinner, put the kids to bed, handled tantrums and logistics while I was working 12 hour days.

-My stage management team. We have a rotating staff of stage managers, and since I do the bulk of the staffing, I generally only hire people I want to work with. Even still, I loved the team I had for this show – everyone was super supportive of each other, we solved problems together, everyone stayed positive and didn’t let their stress influence their work or those around them, and everyone was rock solid and reliable. It’s great having a team that you know has your back. So much of the success of a show from the stage management stand point is having a team that gels. I’m so grateful that we did.

-The Technical director and the Lighting Supervisor and the stage crew for transforming the venue into an opera stage. They worked miracles. Very expensive miracles, but miracles nonetheless.

-Getting to work with a legendary lighting designer. When I was growing up, Chicago Lyric Opera would broadcast their opera on the radio. At the end when they read the credits, the same man would always be named as the lighting designer. I grew up with this guy’s name in my head. I had always thought that he was a wise avuncular man. Welp, thirty years later, I am now working with this lighting designer, and he is indeed a wise avuncular man. Was he a wise, avuncular man thirty years ago? Probably. I don’t know if he’s just ageless or what. I feel so lucky to have gotten to work with him. This is the show where I realized that when a show is called well, it is as much because the show is well designed and well lit, as it is because of my skills as a calling stage manager. You can call poorly lit shows well, but then you have to work a lot harder.

-That the 14 year old is able to navigate public transportation by herself. A couple times recently she took the metro somewhere with a friend. I was a little nervous about letting her do it by herself, especially since her friends aren’t frequent Metro riders. But the 14 year old did great and got everyone where they needed to be. I guess I don’t know why she seems too young to be riding public transportation by herself – in DC all kids middle school and up get free metro cards because that is how they get to school; there are no buses to take them. Often on the Metro you’ll see groups of kids going to and from school. I think riding public transportation is a really good life skill to have.

What We Ate: I’m going to be real honest it was a veritable hodge podge of dinners. For every comment I get that says, “You dinners always sound so good!” there are weeks like this where despite having meal plan we all end up eating whatever we can shove into our mouths. This is what we eat when we are in the thick of evening work and activities. Keeping it real here.

Monday: I think there was some kind of stir fry at home. At work, I missed dinner because someone on my team was out sick and I had to create the evening’s rehearsal running order (known as the trian schedule) on my dinner break -something that is usually done by this other person. I don’t mind doing it – it’s actually fun for me to to think through the evening and how long each section of rehearsal will take. But still – it does take a bit of time. I probably had a handful of kit kats and a mandarin orange for dinner.

Tuesday: I think they had leftover back beans on tortilla chips. I missed dinner because, again, someone on my team was out sick and I spent dinner making the train schedule.

Wednesday: Box dinner for the two younger kids because they had activities- sandwiches, apple slices and peppers. This is actually exactly what I pack them for school lunch. I was at work for a little bit in the evening so I ate food when I got home. Can’t remember what it was. Probably something eaten cold out of the fridge. Did the 14 year old eat? If she did it was probably ramen.

Thursday: The Husband made a curry gravy – I think it’s called pub curry gravy, which he and the two younger kids ate with chicken and broccoli. I was at work and ate a tuna onigiri that I had packed. The 14 year old came to see my dress rehearsal and grabbed McDonald’s on the way to the theatre.

Friday: Pizza and movie night. It was my turn to pick the movie and I chose His Girl Friday because I wanted a classic movie to watch and I love Cary Grant. This was a BIG FAIL with 2 out of 3 kids. One kid fell asleep and one kid started crying about half way through the movie because they thought the movie was so boring and wanted to watch something else. “They talk too fast and don’t move around enough!!!!!” the child bawled. Oooookay. I thought the fast talking was what made the movie fun.

Saturday: Opening night! I was too nervous/ busy to eat dinner, so I didn’t eat dinner. Thankfully the opera provided artist meals for post show. The 14 year old was babysitting – I hope she ate before going over. Not sure what the rest of the family ate. Maybe leftovers? I had a meltdown that morning about how no one eats leftovers yet at the same time people complain that the fridge and freezer are too full. I might have gone a little ballistic.

Sunday: The Husband had bought me injera on Friday when he went to pick up pizza, so I snacked on injera all night. I also reheated the curry gravy from the other night and ate that with potatoes and broccoli. I think the family, in a good faith effort, ate more leftovers.

As you can see, the dinner situation is a little dire right now. BUT…people aren’t going hungry, and everyone is figuring things out. I guess there will be plenty of opportunities to eat vegetables in their lives.

Welp that’s the news from here. It’s ticked past midnight so you’re technically going to get two posts today for NaBloPoMo.

Any other life skills I should make sure to teach my kids? What are your favorite snacks when you’re facing crunch time? What is your feeling on leftovers? What classic film should I torture my kids with next?

The moment I decided to be a stage manager – Part One

Where I’ve been spending my week.

Happy Election Day, USA!

I voted early last week since I knew today would be a long work day. I’m on the Metro on the way to work again, and let’s see if I can again finish this post before I get to my stop.

I often get asked how I came to be a stage manager, since it is such a specific profession. Well, here’s the story.

Like many good Asian kids, I went to university telling my parents I wanted to go to med school. I don’t really think I wanted to go to med school. In my heart I wanted to be an opera singer, but I realized that I lacked the talent and personality to do that.

I did, however end up studying music- not performance, but rather composition and history. I also sang in the Glee Club, took performances classes and did a few recitals. In addition, part of my financial aid package was a work study job in the scene shop of the theatre department. There I helped build sets and labelled tools and sorted buckets of screws.

At one point, I was talking to a theatre student and she said, “Have you thought of being a stage manager? The student groups are always looking for stage managers.”

I kind of dismissed that because I wasn’t really a theatre kid, I was a music kid. The scene shop job was just to get me through and earn some spending money.

So I went through school very involved in the music department and not being very interested in technical theatre. And then I graduated and decided I wanted to work in arts administration because I wasn’t going to be a performer, but I liked being part of the process of bringing shows to life. So I applied to basically every theatre internship program I could find. Opera companies didn’t have internships in arts admin, so I figured I’d start in theatre. This was back when the internet was a new thing for me, so I while I found some of these internship programs online many I read about in trade publications liek ArtSearch. Everyone still sent paper resumes and cover letters. I sent out so many resumes.

I ended up getting an internship in Company Management at a theatre in the same town where I went to school. Company Management is the department that deals with travel and housing for actors, directors, designers. I cleaned a lot of apartments and did a lot of driving to the airport.

The Company Managers and the Stage Managers shared an office, so I often got to see the stage managers coming in and out, arms fill of binders and papers and tape measures. During tech week, company management was always on call, so I would hang out in the office or in the theatre watching tech. I remember thinking, “Boy, the stage managers always look so busy. If I have to be at the theatre til midnight, I’d rather be busy than sitting around waiting to drive people home…”

… and now I’m at my stop. So I’ll leave you on that cliff hanger and write part 2. of Diane’s career epiphany another day.

Weekly Recap + What we ate: Cool Blogger’s Walking Club, Week 3- Fall Foliage

I thought I’d again combine my post with my Week 3 Cool Blogger’s run down since clearly writing two posts in one week is too much for me right now between work, sleep, and sewing Hallowe’en costumes like a fiend.

First off the Hallowe’en Costume update – the kids are all dressing up as characters from Avatar The Last Airbender. (I always have to specify because otherwise people ask me if I’ve invested in blue body paint.)
Kid #1, going as Katara – Dress is finished, just need to hem it. Still needs a belt, but I have the materials for that.
Kid #2, going as Aang – Purchased yellow shirt and joggers, brown legwarmers. Today I made a capelet out of orange fleece (no sewing, just cutting a circle with a hole in the middle). I still need to sew the blue arrow to the pink hat I bought him.
Kid #3, going as Toph – top is done, just need to hem the collar (this is a bit of dilemma because I lost the pattern for the collar. I might just stick some white bias tape on it and be done.). pants are done, need hemming. Headband made. Belt ordered (if I have time, I’ll add the gold accents). Still need to make a tabard, but I have the material, so should be quick.
All of that seems doable on Hallowe’en morning, since that will be my next day off. And this coming week is tech.

Also – added to the mix was that last week, the 9 year old said to me, “I need a costume for the Fall Festival.” The Fall Festival was maybe ten days away. It’s an event at school where kids dress up and there’s a parade and then a party in the classroom.

“Well good,” I said, “you can go as Aang.”

“No. I need to go as a book character.”

“Oh.”

Because it would be too easy for parents to allow kids to just wear their Hallowe’en costumes to school. To be fair, in all previous grades, the students made their costumes in class. This was the first year my kid had to make one at home.

There was much angst because he didn’t know what book character he wanted to be and he was afraid that none of his favorite book characters were recognizable. And then he said, “I’ll go as Harry Potter.”

And I said, “Honey, you haven’t even read Harry Potter. I don’t think that is the spirit of the exercise. Why don’t you go as Dog Man.”

“Oh that’s good idea.”

So this morning I also helped him make a Dog Man costume. So that’s four costumes I had to make this year.

Anyhow, on to Cool Bloggers’ Walking Club.

Welcome to my week three Cool Blogger’s Walking Club recap. Thanks again to Elisabeth for leading the charge.

Week Three’s theme was Fall Foliage. It actually was a little early to be in peak fall foliage, so this theme was a little bit more of a scavenger hunt than I had thought it would be – a lot of trees were still fully green and leafy here. I think that’s good, though, because the walks became an exercise in noticing.

Thursday 10/15:

10 minute morning yoga

Walked kids to bus then took the long way home. Fall foliage is starting to peek out. (“peek”, not peak – that comes later…)

Friday 10/16:

20 mins yoga in the morning.

The kids were off school since it was a grading day for the teachers. Everyone was antsy by 8am so we went on a 30 minute walk down to the trail.

At work, I biked to take my bike to the bike shop for tune up and then walked back to work.

Saturday 10/17:

10 minute. Yoga in the morning

30 minute run walk along the trail while the 14 year old was at her voice lesson. It was a little grey and chilly, so the fall colours were rather muted, like this res vine:

Sunday 10/18:

20 minute yoga in the morning

10 minute walk during half time of the 9 year old’a flag football game. I walked the track around the field and then a loop of the parking lot where I saw this gorgeous tree.

Monday 10/19:

14 minute yoga.

Walked the long way home after the bus drop off. I was very amused by the pruning of this tree:

Then I took a loop through the park before heading home:

Tuesday 10/20:

15 minute yoga

30 minute walk taking the kids to the bus stop and then choosing the long way home. There was some beautiful yellows:

Wednesday 10/21:
10 minutes of yoga in the morning.

I had to be downtown for a site visit this day. Parking around the venue is not easy and I ended up parking about 10 minutes away. Which was a little annoying, but then I realized that this was a good way to get my CBWC steps in. No foliage picture from this urban stroll because I didn’t pass any foliage in the city.

Then on my dinner break I walked to pick up my bike from the shop and then biked back to work. There was fall colour on my bike, but I haven’t mastered the art of biking and taking photos :).

That’s Week #3! Next week’s theme is Hallowe’en, and I think it will take me to the end of the month since next week is also tech so I don’t know that I’ll post before Sunday. Which is November.

Speaking of November- would it be bonkers for me to participate in National Blog Post Month? I’ve started it a few times, but never manage to pull it off. But this year, I should be done the hardest part of tech by November 1st so I think it might be doable….

Grateful For:
-The other parents at our bus stop. One day last week, the bus was super late, so one mom put my kids in her car to take them to school. The bus actually pulled up as they were leaving, but it was so nice of her to be willing to do that. And then on Wednesday, when I had to be downtown by 10am, I was able to drop the kids with another parent at the bus stop. I mean, I guess the kids are old enough that they could just wait on their own, but it was nice to know there was another parent looking out for them.

-Clear blue skies and crisp autumn air for the last flag football game of the season. Also grateful for the 9 year old’s coach. The team lost every single game this fall, but they were playing against teams that had been together for two or three years, while the 9 year old’s team was new this season. Anyhow, I’m grateful the 9 year old had a chance to try things out – he came away with some nice NFL swag and has decided that he’s going to go back to playing soccer.

-Spare laptop at work. One day, I forgot my laptop at home and when I got to work, I had that sinking feeling. Luckily we had a spare lap top at work, so I didn’t have to go home to get my own lap top.

-Our Technical Director at work who is such a bad ass and is doing some amazing work transforming the venue space into an opera stage. She is responsible for so much planning and coordinating and balancing to make things happen safely and smoothly. What she is leading is a huge undertaking and I’m sure she is fielding demands left and right. So much respect for her. Also so grateful that she is at the helm..

-Dogs who stick their heads out the windows of cars. They look like they are living their best live and it makes me so happy to see. Last week I passed a car with a dog in the back seat, head out the window, tongue out. It just made my day.

-TMI, but I’m grateful I got my period this week because next week is tech and of course I can still do my job while on my period, but it is always easier to not be on my period during the most intense week of a show.

-An afternoon contra dance. We went dancing today and it’s nice that the dance is in the afternoon because we can take the whole family and not worry about the kids staying up way past their bedtimes. I’m also really grateful that everyone was super kind the the kids while they were dancing – the 7 and 9 year olds still don’t quite get how to do a hey for four, but no one got annoyed at them, instead they just gently pushed them along. We were on the fence about going, but I’m grateful that we did go to the dance, and I got to dance with the Husband.

-Also – grateful for a bounty of apples. One of my favorite parts of fall is the abundance and variety of apples.

Looking Forward To:
-Tech. I mean I’m not looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to being on the other side of it. I really am trying to be excited about tech and the show – we are in a new venue in a huge new way and it is, honestly, a little intimidating. I’m trying to not be toxically positive about the situation (“I’m so excited for this challenge!!”) but also trying not to be just toxic and catty, which is sometimes a defensive mechanism.

-Okay, one thing I am looking forward to is our new venue is by the Mall, so I’m looking forward to running on my dinner breaks near some iconic DC architecture.

-Thanksgiving… At our family meeting yesterday, we discussed what folks wanted to eat for Thanksgiving. The 14 year old would like to make the pie this year. And I guess the 9 year old is going to take on the mantle of rainbow Jell-O.

-Kabocha squash. On a whim I asked the Husband to pick me up two kabocha squash from the Farmer’s market. This was one of my grandmother’s favorite foods. Not sure what I’ll do with them yet – my Ama liked to just steam them and eat them plain. I love their sweet nutty flavor – and the texture isn’t as stringy as other winter squash.

-Voting. Early voting started last week in Maryland. Most of it is fairly predictable given where, but still, I like going and I like going early.

-Soup Party! Our annual departmental soup party is this coming week. I was debating between cream of mushroom, hot and sour soup, or chickpea gnocchi soup. I think I’m going with the chickpea gnocchi soup because I can make a double batch and the kids will eat it. I’m not sure if they will go for cream of mushroom or hot and sour soup.

-Gilded Age – Season Four is coming November 1st!! The trailers show some very fun scenery chewing. Can’t wait.

-Fluffy happy reads (or I hope…) to get me through tech week. Just borrowed this on Libby:

What We Ate:
Monday: Gumbo’s Daddy from NY Times Cooking. This is a sort of simpler version of gumbo that I made because we had five lbs of chicken wings to use up. I also added okra to this because I like okra. I did the cooking step in the InstantPot so I could make it the night before, after I got home from work. Next time I would add the okra later because it kind of melted into the soup. Tasty. We ate it with rice and I had it for dinner later the week and froze two containers of it for leftovers. I was at work and had the leftover quinoa salad from the week before.

Taco Tuesday: We pulled some smoked pork out of the freezer and the Husband ate that with the kids as nachos. I had the leftover quinoa salad from the week before.

Wednesday: Sweet potato and black bean soup from the freezer. “From the freezer” is a theme of our dinners this month. Still more quinoa salad for me.

Thursday: The kids had mac and cheese out of a box – the 14 year old cooked because the Husband was out with a friend and I was at work. I had some leftover take-out Thai for dinner.

Friday: The family had take out pizza and watched K-Pop Demon Hunters for Family movie night. I had the faux gumbo from Monday night for dinner.

Saturday: The family went out for dumplings and noodles. I had their leftovers when I got home.

Sunday: We’re trying a new thing for Sunday dinners. We used to have pasta and red sauce on Sundays because it was fast and easy. Well, now we’re going to try “fend for yourself” – aka Leftovers or cereal. The leftover situation in the fridge and freezer was getting out of hand. And also, I don’t want to have to cook on Sundays. Maybe it’s just this slew of Sundays when I’ve already worked all Saturday…? Anyhow – the 7 and 9 year old made themselves eggs. I think they each ate five eggs a piece. They’re obsessed with frying eggs and eating them. They’ve practically made it a competitive sport, seeing who can make the prettiest, unblemished egg with a fully in tact yolk.

That’s the week. I’m girding my loins for this upcoming week of tech, and reminding myself of the important things – sleep, food, and kindness. I have to remember to pack good snacks and healthy meals (thank goodness for the freezer full of soup), go to sleep at a decent hour, and hug the family when I can. I do think tech week is harder for the Husband because he has to essentially single parent while doing his paying job and I mostly just concentrate on my job and come home late at night.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Are there any Hallowe’en costumes in your future? Any bad-asses at work? In a good way :).

Weekly recap + what we ate: a week of outfits!

The weather has been so bonkers lately! One day it is 80 degrees and then the next it is 55 degrees and spitting rain. It was a busy week last week. Often when I have a busy week, I do a “Week of Outfits” post because it’s something I can do a little at a time. Of course, I really should have saved “Week of Outfits” for next week when I’m in tech, but I think the first week of rehearsal is more interesting sartorially.

Monday – First Day of Rehearsal!

I like to get a little bit dressed up for the first day of rehearsal. I went with an all red theme because red is one of my favorite colours and I feel good in red. (Afterwards the executive director of the company said that red was the official company colour…) The hat was purchased this summer from the hat shop in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The red sweater is from Uniqlo. The Dress is from Wool& and the shoes are Geisswein.

Tuesday – Forgot to take a picture til 11pm after I got home from work:

Theme of the day was Orange! It was also 80 degrees this day. Hat another NOTL purchase. The button down used to belong to the Husband, but it no longer fits him so it’s mine now. Duluth tank (with built in bra). Cotton gauze pants from Old Navy (a last minute purchase two summers ago, grabbed as I headed to check out. They are one of my favorite summer pants). Black Allbirds – my father saw them on sale at REI, purchased them for the oldest kid, but they aren’t her thing, so they are now mine.

Wednesday:

Same hat and shoes as Monday. The dress is from a Japanese brand, a hand me down from my cousin. You’ve probably seen it on past “what I wore” recaps because I love this dress; it is so easy to wear because it is stretchy cotton, and also has interesting details so it feels like an effortless way to look like I tried.

Thursday:

Yet another hat from NOTL (I bought four!). Wool& dress with floral Uniqlo top worn over it. (I’m sure I’ve worn this a lot too.) Shoes are also Geisswein. I need to replace my Geisswein shoes; they are two years old and the treads are all worn out on this pair and the red pair. But it’s nearly winter, so I think I might wait until spring.

Friday:

No hat this day because I took my bike in for maintenance so I had to wear my helmet. I actually came to work in shorts and a t-shirt, rode the bike to the shop then came back to work and changed into this outfit. The top is Uniqlo, the skirt is from JC Penny, off the discount rack.

Saturday: My day off. I have no picture from this day – I put on my running clothes in the morning to go for a run while the oldest was at her voice lesson and then just never changed out of them.

Sunday: Flag football and rehearsals.

Photo taken by the 14 year old…

It was cool but sunny this day, which was a relief after having terrible weather so far for flag football season. After flag football, I went to work and was there til 10:30pm. The red knit cap is from (you guess it) that shop in Niagara on the Lake. I wore my fox overalls. I like to wear my fox overalls when work on the weekends. It’s a bit of dopamine dressing for having to be at work. The quarter zip is another hand me down that the Husband out grew. I think it’s from Joseph A. Banks.

That’s a week of outfits!

What other “Week of…” posts can I do…?

Grateful For:
-Boone. My friend L’s dog passed away last week. I only met him once and he was such a sweet presence. I’m so glad L shared Boone with all of us.

-A smooth first day of rehearsal. Shhh … here’s a secret… I don’t actually like being the stage manager. It really stresses me out to be in charge. I much rather be the assistant stage manager. The first day of rehearsal stresses me out because there are so many new elements descending on me at once. But last week’s first day was very smooth and mostly routine and I felt like I knew what I was doing.

-on that note – I’m grateful for people of a higher pay grade than me to whom I can kick problems up the chain.

-My bed. I’m so grateful for my bed and being able to slide in between the sheets after a long day at work.

-Sally’s sewing machine. I am sewing Hallowe’en costumes on a sewing machine that was gifted to me by my late mother in law. It is a Spartan Singer sewing machine from the 1950s and only does straight stiches, and I’m so grateful to have it.

-Sewing tutorials on the internet. I don’t have a serger, but the patterns I’m looking at has all these serging instructions. The internet suggested I do a French seam instead. I’m so glad that there are a plethora of videos online that will tell me how to do that.

-Clear blue skies after days of rain.

Looking Forward to:
-contra Dancing! Next Sunday, one of the Husband’s favorite callers is calling an afternoon contra dance and it’s on our calendar to go. Sometimes we loose steam and don’t end up going, but I’m putting this into the world and saying that we are going.

-Seeing a friend from my mom’s group. Her kid got cast in my show, which means that she’ll be bringing him to rehearsals. I’m excited because her kid is pretty awesome and is so excited to be in the show.

-The Hallowe’en costumes are coming together…. I can’t wait until they are finished! Both because I’m excited for how they turn out and also because I’ll be glad to be finished.

-Listening to more of this book:

I was really into this mystery(ish) series years ago, around when the oldest was born. It’s about an ex-Army helicopter pilot turned Episcopal Priest and a Police Chief of a small town in upstate New York who team up to solve crimes. (I call it mystery-ish because it’s not typical clues and red herrings, but then it’s also not twisty enough to be considered a thriller.) A few years back, the the author had a lull and the series fell off my radar. I just discovered that in the past few years she has published more books in this series, so I’m excited to catch up. I started listening to this one and realized that I did actually read it when it first came out, but it will be a nice way back into the series.

What We Ate:
Monday: Mexican rice. The Husband cooked. We had a lot of rice leftover from take-out Chinese the night before so we are trying to think of ways to use it up. I went to tap class after work so I got home late and had snack dinner.

Tuesday: Chili black beans and corn burritos. The black beans and corn were from the freezer. I had leftovers for dinner at work.

Wednesday: Broccoli Quinoa Salad – a variation of this recipe from the NY Times cooking. I added mango and red peppers and didn’t add cheese or pecans. The cheese really does elevate the salad, but I was aiming for a plant based meal. Though the dressing does have honey. So…. vegan-ish. This was a great way to eat lots of vegetables.
I had leftovers at work again.

Thursday: Any ground meat Bolognese. This is the meat sauce I made two weeks ago, pulled from the freezer. The Husband was going out so all the 14 year old had to do was warm the sauce and make pastas.
I had the Broccoli Quinoa Salad at work for dinner, adding a few handfuls of arugula to it.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made) and the kids watched Asterix and the Secret of the Magic Potion. The 9 year old is really into Asterix – which is nice because it’s one of the things I can get in French that was originally written in French as opposed to other books her reads that are French translations of English books. They did watch the movies in English, though.

Saturday: Waffles and green beans. We made both Savory cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur’s Baking Cookbook as well as the Cinnamon Sugar Waffles that I had read about on Nicole’s Blog. Be warned! The Cinnamon Sugar Waffles says that it makes 5 waffles so I doubled the recipe. This recipe makes a butt ton of waffles. We had so many waffles left over. I guess breakfast for the week is taken care of.

These are the leftovers.

Sunday: I was at work and ordered out a tempeh panini because a friend was meeting me on my lunch break. At home the family went to play D&D at a friend’s house and they ordered pizza.

Well that’s the week here.

Tell me what’s your favorite accessory? Have you ever used a serger? They kind of scare me.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye September, Hello October!

I started this post on a rainy rainy Saturday, while the oldest was at her voice lesson….

. The teacher is teaching out of a church and there is a little church library with comfy chairs and warm wood paneling and muted colours and wifi and it all feels very cozy. I have my tea with me, but there are no coasters here and I’m afraid of putting my mug down on a surface here without a coaster. All to say, I have 45 minutes, so let’s see if I can write a post.

Here is October! We flipped our 3 month calendar and December is in sight! (Note to self: Order a new 3 month calendar. Actually order planners in general.) October came in blazing hot with temperatures in the 80s, but now we are looking at another drizzly week ahead. The leaves are starting to be tinged red and brown. The season is moving forward for sure.

a leafy green giant tree, with the leaves on some branches starting to turn orange.
The leaves are changing colour!

So Hello, October. Good-bye September. Here was how September was:

September Highlights:

-The last week of our pool being open and swimming laps. Seeing the kids make leaps and bounds in swimming this year.

-Our Annual Trip to the Maryland Renaissance Festival – there was music, food, juggling, jousting, acrobatics, and the purchase of a giant wooden axe.

-The 14 year old got a part in the high school play!

-Some nice social time for me – Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends. Walks with a friend I met at a new mom’s group 7 years ago. Ethiopian food lunch with another friend. It always fills my cup to connect with friends.

-Long weekend trip to Monticello and Shenandoah for hiking.

-My parents visiting. We didn’t do a whole lot special (aside from the Monticello/Shenandoah trip)- just life with them around.

-Celebrating the birthday of the youngest. She is now Seven! We had strawberry shortcake the day of and the following weekend a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. AND she got all her Thank You cards out! I got to send snail mail for her – it feels really nice to send snail mail.
(On that note – we watched a Kathleen Madigan comedy special and she has this line about how amazing the Postal Service is, “Here’s 45 cents. Please take this to Alaska.” I mean she’s right – that’s an amazingly cheap service. Although now it’s $0.82, which still seems like a good deal to bring a bit of joy to someone far away.)

-Biking to school with the kids.

-Starting Tap Dance Class. It’s been a challenge, but fun. I’m working on flapping with my left foot without accidentally scuffing my heel on the ground.

-Date night with the Husband – we had dinner at a Turkish restaurant and then went to a performance of Bernstein’s MASS.

=My cousins came to visit (Actually my cousin and her grown daughter, but I call them both my cousin). We went to Glenstone Museum and took a walk at the Botanical Gardens and just hung out.

-Summer: The Donna Summer Musical at Toby’s Dinner Theatre. Our first dinner theatre experience and it was a lot of fun.

-Favorite Dinner Cooked: Crispy Tofu Tacos (so good we had it twice last month), Thai Quinoa Salad.

-Favorite thing watched: I finished Starstruck and found it such a sweet and funny show. We also started to watch Schitt’s Creek, Better Things, and Gilmore Girls.

Goals and Habits:
-Painting: only 1 painting this month. I thought I would paint during our long weekend away in Monticello, but I didn’t. I think painting is taking a backseat in October since I have to finish the Hallowe’en costumes.
-Crossword puzzle completed: 1
-Live Performances: 3 – Bernstein’s MASS and also lots of live performances at the Renn Faire, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical
-Museums: 2 – Glenstone Museum and Monticello
-Hike: 1 – Shenandoah hike on Turk Mountain Trail
-Yoga: 18/30, but I think this was actually higher because I wasn’t good at logging and habit tracking last month.
-Run: 6x (+2 bike rides and 2 laps swims)
-Strength: 2 (My goal is 8x a month, but I’m finding it really hard to motivate myself for this one…i just need to find a consistent way to work it in)
-Vegan Dinners: 4 (Goal is 4x a month, so yay)

September Lowlights:
-The situation at the Kennedy Center being shut down. I’m not directly affected because I no longer work there, but the trickledown effect is huge throughout the arts community in DC.

-Our fridge not working, us buying a new fridge, then the old fridge working again and us regretting getting a new fridge so soon. Oh well. I guess the fridge was over 12 years old so it was getting unpredictable.

-Stressing about kids’ activity sign ups. I still feel like the kids are doing too much but also missing out on things. There’s no perfect solution here.

-Saying good-bye to a beloved work colleague who has gone on to a bigger job.

-Some non-bloggable stressors in life – I guess I’ll just say sometimes it’s hard to have patience with the world and those around me, for sure the fault is mine.

Quote of September:
Don’t try to convince the other person during the argument.
-Ron Friedman on the Radical Candor Podcast. This quote really landed when I was in the midst of the aforementioned non-bloggable things. Friedman’s point is that sometimes it is best to make your case and walk away and let the other person ponder, rather than pushing to change someone’s mind in the midst of the argument. People need time to come to conclusions themselves.

Looking Forward to in October:
-Hallowe’en! I’m a little stressed about having to make the costumes, but I’m excited. I don’t have a serger, so I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos on how to make a French seam. (Is this even necessary???)
-Starting rehearsals for a new show. To be honest, I’m dreading this show a little – I don’t do well with change, and there will be a lot of new things to deal with since we will be in a new (to me) venue. I mean even the fact that I’m calling it a venue and not a theatre is kind of telling. Also not looking forward to the schedule – there is rehearsal almost every night for the next month. The Husband looked at everyone at our family meeting today and said, “Take a good look at mom so you remember what she looks like when you see her again in November.”
BUT despite that- I AM looking forward to the stage manager colleagues coming in and to working with them.
-My cousin is coming for a quick visit.
-Theatre trip to see Come From Away (we just did this and it was FANTASTIC!)

A smiling woman in a striped dress leaning against a sign that says, "Welcome to Gander". In the background is a photo backdrop that says "Come From Away at the Ford's Theater"
lobby sign

-Supertitle gig. It looks like it’s a lot of songs from the Great American Songbook, which is always a great joy to listen to. And we don’t run titles for the popular song selections, so I just get to listen.
-Elisabeth’s Cool Blogger’s Walking Club. I was going to have a theme for every week’s walk, but this first week snuck up on me, so no themes this week.

-reading some fun books. In the busy season at work, books need to be gripping and fun. Currently reading:

I’m on an Annabel Monaghan kick ever since I read Dolly all the time.

-also, I started watching Bridgerton Season 4 and it’s been so wonderfully swoony so far. Looking forward to watching more of it. (i’ve skipped season 2 and 3 because I didn’t like those books as much as Sophie and Benedict’s story. Theirs is probably my favorite of the series. That and While He Was Wicked. The rest of the book series is very meh for me.)

Grateful for this past week:
-The Library close to my mechanics. I had to take my car in for an oil change and was able to go to the library three blocks away while I waited. How amazing that there is this place with desks and wifi and I can park there for three hours – for free.

-Flowers even though it is autumn. There are some autumn dahlias in our garden that bring a cheerful burst of colour to our front yard.

-Sandwiches. What a perfect invention for when one is hungry! Bread, meat, cheese, mustard. All able to be slapped together quickly for a satisfying mouthful. These days, I’ll take whatever is in the fridge, but it’s been brown mustard, turkey, and cheddar cheese. If I have more time, and I have it on hand, I’ll add avocado or arugula.

-The rain letting up just in time for my walk to the Metro and then from the Metro to work.

-Naps and an unscheduled Saturday afternoon in order to take one. I had been feeling a little run down all week and ended up taking a 3 hour nap and felt much better when I woke up at the tale end of the afternoon. Also grateful to the Husband for taking care of dinner while I was napping. Naps are such glorious restorative things.

-a fun hair cut. So two nights before my appointment to have my hair cut, I had a dream that I was getting my hair cut. And in that dream, the stylist – who, incidentally wasn’t my stylist and I spent a good portion of my dream asking, “But where’s Alexei???” – the stylist gave me a super sleek 1920s bob with blunt bangs. So I go to get my hair cut and when I sit down, Alexei asks, “What are you thinking today?”
And I tell him all about my dream. And he says, “Okay.”
He starts snipping away.
“I’m digging your dream,” Alexei said. “This is so much better than those people who come in and tell me, ‘AI told me I should do this.’ And the AI image has nothing to do with what their hair texture is like, or what what their face is like or anything.”
And twenty minutes later – my hair was short and I had my blunt bangs. (Alexei works fast and charges by the hour…).

Sometimes I think I should try to cover the grey, but then I realize I don’t want to spend the time on the maintenance.

I’ve since washed the hair and it still looks cute. This has been my favorite hair cut in ages.

What We Ate:
Monday: Salmon Pasta – the 14 year old made dinner. I don’t have the recipe for what she made, but it involved salmon, spinach, and pasta.

Taco Tuesday: Crispy Tofu Tacos from NY Times Cooking. We made these last month and everyone loves them. I served with cabbage and avocado. Vegan, though the kids put sour cream and cheese on theirs.

Wednesday: Ground anything Bolognese sauce and pasta w/ bagged salad. This was a “clean out the freezer” meal. I had three containers half full of crushed or pureed tomatoes, and a variety of ground meat in the freezer – sausage, beef, lamb, and pork. Though the pork smelled a little off, so I ended up throwing that out. Anyhow, it all went in a pot with carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and the left over tofu from Tuesday’s crispy tofu tacos. Hearty and oh so satisfying.

Very happy to get these out of my freezer.

Thursday: Thai Inspired Coconut Curry Soup from NY Times Cooking. We still had sweet potatoes and a cauliflower left from the CSA box our friend gave us while he was out of town, and this soup was a delicious way to use it up along with the rest of a jar of red curry paste in the fridge. This was really tasty. The recipe itself is vegan, but I added chicken broth to get it out of my fridge and a dash of fish sauce.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made – sausage and mushroom; pickle; red pepper; fig and balsamic. All very tasty) and Funny Girl. Funny story here – it was the 14 year old’s turn to pick a move and she wanted to watch a movie musical, so she picked Funny Girl, having seen the stage show this summer when we were in Niagara-on-the-Lake. So we rented the movie from Amazon and put it on. And we’re watching it and I’m reading the credits and it says, “Songs by John Kander and Frank Ebb.” And I thought, “Oh I didn’t realize that!” And then we’re watching the movie and Barbra Streisand is frolicking onstage in a huge musical number and the plot unfolds, and I keep asking the 14 year old, “Was that part in the stage play?” And she kept saying, “No, I don’t think so.”

Then truth be told I might have fallen asleep for a little bit because the movie is going on and on, and I’m like, “When is Barbara Streisand going to sing Don’t Rain on My Parade???” And then I make some comment about how the movie version of Funny Girl seems very different from the stage show. And then the 9 year old pipes up from his corner of the couch:

“We aren’t watching Funny Girl. We’re watching Funny Lady.”

Wait what???

Did you know there was a sequel to Funny Girl, called Funny Lady?

We had accidentally rented Funny Lady instead of Funny Girl. I guess the 9 year old noticed, but he hadn’t seen the stage show, so he didn’t clock that we were watching the wrong movie. By then we were half way through Funny Lady, but we stopped the movie, rented Funny GIRL, and pizza and movie night lasted an epically long time.

Saturday: Bahn mi sandwiches, take out. This was the evening I wasn’t feeling well, so we wanted something fast and easy.

Sunday: Sausage, tortellini, and red sauce – typical Sunday dinner.

That’s the dispatch from here. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend and a great week ahead!

(bi, er… tri)Weekly recap + what we ate: Labor Day Weekend 2026 and more

And then I see the end of September just around the corner. Not sure when that happened. It’s been a bit since I wrote a re-cap post, so this might be a little bit of a brain dump. September has been kind of quietly inefficient for me. I’m only working 5-10 hours a week. The other day, the Husband asked me, “What do you do all day?” And I can’t really say where the time goes. I mean aside from the one morning that I ignored everything to finish Nora Goes Off Script….

Let’s see in this period of underemployment….

-I make dinner without feeling like I’m in a rush, even when we have to eat at the dot of 5pm so people can get to activities.

-I spend hours researching how I’m going to make the kids’ Hallowe’en costumes.

-I walk the kids to the bus and then go for a run afterwards, or even just walk the long way home.

-I even got to bike with the kids to school a few times.

-I bake muffins.

-I replace the torn screens on six of our windows. All by myself. This is actually quite easy to do; it took less than ten minutes per window.

-I have spent more time scrolling the internet than I should. Internet rabbit holes are my nemesis and always make me feel…. blergh-y. It is ironic how much time I spend reading blogs and articles online about maximizing productivity since it is precisely reading blogs and articles about productivity that is keeping me from being productive.

-Also clearly I haven’t been blogging a lot. This is one area I would like to be more disciplined about. Not because I think I have incredible content that must be pushed out into the world, but more because it’s a creative outlet and I like to try to do something creative every day in a routine way.

Anyhow, things are going to change because I’m on to a 20 hour a week (paid) work schedule starting this week. Which doesn’t sound like a lot of time in the office, but it means being in the office approximately 10:30a – 3:30pm. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for other, non-paid things. Maybe I can get a run in before work, or declutter one thing. Run one errand. Maybe it will make me more efficient. Or maybe it will stress me out and I will revenge bedtime procrastinate even more.

And then in October, I’m back in rehearsal and it’s game over then for leisure time. To be honest, I’m kind of dreading October until the end of the year. It’s going to be a really exhausting time at work, I can tell already. Usually when work ramps up, family is the first things that falls by the wayside and I want to figure out how to not let that happen this year. I will ponder….

On to other happenings….

Ever since the school year has shifted to starting before Labor Day, I’ve always felt like the holiday has come a very inconvenient time. We get momentum from starting school then… whoa. Here’s a long weekend to throw the routines out of wack.

The past couple of years, Labor Day Weekend has meant Maryland Renaissance Festival. They have a new ticketing system this year where tickets are released in two batches – one set in July and one set the Monday before the weekend. It was a little confusing, because if you check for tickets mid week it will look like everything is sold out. And then you will be sad. I guess I understand – last year tickets were being sold on re-sale sites for 3 or 4 times what they cost. All to say, the new ticketing system was very confusing and I was worried we wouldn’t get tickets. So couple weeks ago when I saw that a batch of tickets had ben released for Labor Day, I snatched them up.

On the day, I managed to get everyone out of the house by 9:00am and we got to the Renn Faire around 9:50am, then it took us another 15 minutes to get through the gates – it was very crowded. Aside from the 6 year old’s floral crown, no one got dressed up this year – we just went as we were.

Friends, I love going to the Renn Faire SO MUCH. As we were walking up to the gate, I was struck with a giddy sense of excitement for the day ahead. “I love this more than Christmas,” I sad to the kids. “It’s just as fun and I don’t have to cook!”

It was a really good day. We saw all our favorite shows – acrobatics, juggling, physical comedy, music. We saw the jousting twice; there are three jousting show throughout the day and we always go see more than one because there is a narrative arc built into the day.

We heard some new to us musicians – isn’t music grand? I don’t know that I’ll ever go to a rock concert or anything on that scale, but I do love listening to and seeing people play music. There were bagpipes! We browsed the shops – the 9 year old bought a battle axe that is over half his size. We ate turkey legs and other food and drank lots of Pepsi because it was super hot.

On the matter of hydrating – I made kind of a critical mistake this time. Last year water bottle fillers were installed, which was great. In previous years I always brought two big bottles of water with me because you had to bring sealed water. Well now with the bottle fillers, I thought I’d just bring my small Nalgenes and not weigh myself down so much. Well that was a bit of a mistake because the lines for the water filler were soooooo long. I think I waited at least 15 minutes each time I went to fill my water bottle. The second time, I did a little thought experiment as I waited in line – “If someone were to walk up to me now, and offer to instantly fill my water bottle for $2, would I do it so I wouldn’t have to stand in line?”

Because that’s the thing – the soda is $2. (It’s not a terrible deal and the soda stands are run by a rotating roster of youth organizations as a fundraiser. So really it’s more liek $3 because I like to tip. “Huzzah for the generous tipper!” they always yell when someone puts money in the tip jar.)

Anyhow, I don’t know what my threshold would be for paying for water vs. spending time standing in line, but I did miss the last few numbers of the bagpipe band, so maybe it would have been worth the $2 to have a cold soda and hear music. I find the internal calculator such a fascianting thing.

Next year, I will bring bigger water bottles. Any maybe also fill them with ice.

We stayed at the Renn Faire til closing, when members of the company sing a last parting song at the gates. Then we got in our cars and wistfully went home, eagerly looking forward to next year.

Because there will always be a next year. The Maryland Renn Festival is 50 years old this year. There were a series of signs up throughout the grounds this year with tidbits of history and blurbs about the people who had performed here over the years. What a beautiful tradition. May it keep going for another fifty.

Other fun things that we’ve been up to so far this month –

-Date Night. The 14 year old’s voice teacher was performing in a production of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS, one of my favorite pieces of music. Although I’ve worked on MASS, I’ve never been in the audience for it – it takes a lot of people to put it on, dancers, singers, chorus, children’s chorus, orchestra…. So when I saw that it was being performed, I asked the Husband if he wanted to go. He said yes and it was date night! We even went out to dinner before hand – it was Restaurant Week in DC, so I picked a nearby restaurant from the list of participating restaurants. We ended up at Ottoman Taverna where the tzatziki was melt in your mouth smooth, and pita fluffy, and the meat grilled to perfection.

-One last swim in the pool. Most outdoor pools here close on Labor Day, so we managed to squeeze in one last evening at the pool. It was raft night so people could bring their floaties. I swam laps, we had dinner sitting in Lounge chairs, and we enjoyed on last relaxing poolside evening. I’ve already paid the membership for next summer.

-A Visit from my Cousin and a trip to Glenstone Museum. My cousin and her mom – okay technically her mom is my cousin, but I call them all cousins – were here visiting. I love how they just fold into the family. They help around the house, eat whatever we were planning on eating, cuddle on the couch, and put up with the noise and chaos of three kids with big feelings.

Glenstone Museum. Nature trails leading to a Richard Serra sculpture.

My cousin loves Glenstone Museum, so she got tickets to visit. Glenstone is a museum of contemporary art with several galleries set on 300 acres of land. There is also a restaurant and walking trails and many many outdoor sculptures.

Jeff Koons, seen from a skewed distance. This is a fun sculpture to see throughout the seasons. because the vegetation changes.


This time there was a striking exhibit of works by the artist and activist Andrea Bowers that were centered on issues of body autonomy and environment. There was a room that was papered with letters written to an abortion activist who was known for providing people with a list of abortion providers. It was really heartbreaking, reading all the letters from people – women, men, parents, all desperate for help.
There were some stunning images drawn on canvases made of recycled cardboard, including one that had the tagline, “Women and the Earth have to tolerate a lot.”
I suppose Bowers’ work had a little more politics than I was comfortable with for a sunny Friday afternoon, but I imagine making people confront their discomfort was part of the point.

-Back to School Night, including our first High School Back to School Night. Wow. It’s been a long time since I was in high school so it was a little surreal to once again be wandering hallways, looking for classrooms. It must be so hard this constant sense of change that high school brings – every few months, it’s new teachers, new classrooms, new patterns. I also wondered if my parents ever went to Back To School night? I don’t really remember; I certainly never accompanied them if they did go. But of course, school communication was very different back then. I’m pretty sure schools sending out email communication wasn’t a thing when I was in school.

-I finished watching Starstruck on HBO Max – I really loved this show. It’s about a twenty something woman who has a one night stand with a famous movie star which turns into more, which turns into on again, off again, what am I doing with my life? The show is funny, messy, and filled with just the right amount of existential angst and rom com warm fuzzies.

-I started taking tap dance lessons! I signed up for a seven week class. I feel frumpy and uncoordinated, but there is something very satisfying about intentionally making lots of noise.

-Funny Kid Quote: I asked the kids the classic question of if they would rather be a big fish in a little pond, or a little fish in a big pond. The six year old replied, “I want to be in a big pond so I can have the whole pond to myself!”

Grateful For:
-The Maryland Renaissance Festival. Every year we go, I just feel so lucky that we have the country’s best Ren Faire so close to us.

-My (former) work colleague C, who has now gone on to bigger and better things. She was so brilliant at her job, always logical and clear-eyed, and handled very difficult situations with grace and tact. I’m sorry to see her go, but I’m glad that she’s on to fulfill other dreams. I’m so glad I got to work with her.

-Music. Especially when it’s played in the car very loudly and everyone sings along.

-Free Bus Ride. The local county bus is free to ride. I had some errands to run the other day, and decided to take the bus. It was so easy to just get on and find a seat. I find this is a lovely use of my tax dollars.

-On that note – car free days. This year, the kids’ bus stop is less than a ten minute walk from our house. And then last week I was able to take the Metro to work. And then because there were no kid activities that evening – I managed to have a car free day. Driving always stresses me out, so I’m always happy to leave the car at home if I can. I realize I am very lucky to have a car to use when I need to, but I am also grateful that I can have a day here and there where I can just get on the metro and read my book.

-The 14 year old taking over some of her own communications. She had to re-schedule a voice lesson the other day, so I asked her to email her voice teacher, and she did. It seems pretty cool that she’s now of an age that she can take care of these things for herself and I don’t have to be the middle person.

-That my grandfather is home. My mother was supposed to come to visit last week, but then my grandfather in Taiwan went to the hospital, so she went to Taiwan to be with him instead. She’ll spend a few days with him then come to us. My grandfather got to go home not soon after my mom arrived, and we Face Timed with him briefly. I guess he was okay since they discharged him. My grandfather is 101 (102 if you’re counting the Taiwanese way), so every day with him active and alert seems amazing. I’m grateful for him receiving medical care and then being well enough to go home. I’m grateful that my mother could get on a plane to him. It’s not nothing to be able to purchase an international ticket at the last minute.

Looking Forward To:

– Come From Away! This is one of the Husband’s favorite musicals and we’ve never seen it live. It is being produced at a theatre here this fall so I got tickets for October.

-Monticello. We have a long weekend coming up for school, so we’re going to go to Charlottesville and visit Monticello. My father, who is visiting, has always wanted to go, and it’s not really that far. We’re going to make a two night trip of it and also get some hiking in…. (Note – we’re currently on this trip… recaps coming!)

-Speaking of which …. National Parks! Now that the middle kid is in 4th Grade, we get a free National Parks Pass for the year. We’ll probably take a trip to Shenandoah on the way home from Charlottesville/ Monticello for a half day hike. Closer to us, Great Falls has some really nice hiking along the Potomac. I’ll have to research more. Last time we had a parks pass, we went to the Smoky Mountains.

-A new mattress. We finally went shopping for a new mattress. Our current mattress is maybe 10 years old but it has definite lumps and valleys in it. Shouldn’t a mattress last more than 10 years???? Oh well. I’m looking forward to our new one. This one is flippable, which I ‘m finding is quite rare these days. (Also – side note, as we were wandering through Macy’s we saw an area that was all curtained off. Of course, we were curious, so we took a peek behind the curtains, and what did we see….?

(Christmas is COMING!!!!)

-We also have a new fridge coming. I might have mentioned the conundrum of our old fridge starting to work fine again after we bought a new fridge. Well we couldn’t stop the order and delivery of the new fridge, so the old fridge is getting sent for Recycling by Pepco (our electricity company). It makes me a little sad to get rid of a working fridge, to be honest. Argh. One of those frustrating things in life.

-Gilmore Girls. When Gilmore Girls first came out, I was just out of college and I didn’t have a television. Which, back in 2020, you needed a television to watch TV. (funny, that. Also funny that they still call them TV shows when you don’t need a TV to watch them these days.) So, partly inspired by J, I’ve decided to fill the Gilmore Girls sized gap in my cultural literacy. It feels so cliched, but I’ve been watching with the 14 year old. There are many many many seasons, so it will probably take me a decade to get through this show, but I’m looking forward to it.

-Reading this book – it’s about Taiwan, how could I not pick it up?

And listening to this audiobook:

What we ate: Oh wow – I haven’t post meals since the start of the month…. Okay. So here is three weeks’ worth of meals:

Monday: Pasta and meatballs and garlic bread. The 14 year old cooked. The meatballs were from the freezer – I had made them a while ago.

Taco Tuesday: Cuban Pork Tacos. from the freezer. I also made a pot of black beans to go with. And quick pickled red onions.

Wednesday: Chicken noodle soup, at the request of the kids.

Thursday: Pad Thai – the Husband made. I went to Happy Hour send off for my colleague C.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made at home) and Avatar Last Airbender live action movie from 2010. The movie was not great, but also ended on a cliff hanger, so I’m a little irate that there isn’t a sequel. Also it was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, which I find fascinating.

Saturday: The Husband and I had dinner out for Date Night. The 14 year old made fried rice at home for her younger siblings.

Sunday: KFC eaten at the pool. Fried Chicken has always struck us as a perfect meal to bring to the pool, but for whatever reason fried chicken never made it on the menu all summer. Until the last day. It was crispy, crunchy, and delicious.

Monday: Ren Faire! We ate fair food and our own snacks throughout the day and weren’t hungry for dinner when we got home.

Taco Tuesday: Freezer Tacos again – the rest of the batch of Cuban Pork Tacos from the freezer that we had eaten last week. (We are in a major “clean out the freezer” phase right now.)

Wednesday: Thai Quinoa Salad. This recipe from Cookie and Kate, only I used coleslaw mix rather than red cabbage – I didn’t want to shred a whole head of cabbage – and I added edamame instead of snow peas for a boost of protein. This was really tasty and packed full of veggies and topped with a peanut dressing. I really needed this injection of vegetables. Vegan.

Thursday – Roasted Salmon and potatoes w/ green beans. The 14 year old cooked.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Aristocats. I had never seen Aristocats before – my cousin picked this movie; when we have guests visiting, we always let our guests pick the movie for pizza and movie night. And truth to tell, I still can’t claim to have seen this movie because I fell asleep about thirty minutes in. It was probably just as well that I fell asleep because afterwards we watched a music video for one of the musical numbers and there were some pretty problematic Asian stereotypes going on with that Siamese Cat. I don’t know… I still get super uncomfortable with slant eyed/ chopstick wielding/ sing song voiced characters in movies. Maybe I should squirm my way through them and have conversations with the kids about how terribly racist people are and how this is not okay to distill entire races down to one or two exaggerated elements. But you know… when I was growing up, kids pulled their eyes into slants at me and I really don’t need to subject myself to that willingly. So… sorry kids, you don’t get to see fake Asians on my watch. You’ll just have to settle for watching other egregious bits of racism – like Peter Pan. (All of this, I realize, makes Breakfast at Tiffany’s kind of difficult because it is, Mickey Rooney aside, one of my favorite movies…. Sigh. The world is complicated.)

Saturday: Butter Chicken with rice and paratha. My cousin brought a spice packet with her when she visited and the kids like chicken.

Sunday: Butternut squash curry with tofu and noodles. I know there’s a fancier name for this dish, but the Husband made it, so I don’t know what the real name is. But it was really tasty. And bonus – he used up a bag of butternut squash that was in the freezer.

Monday: Chicken Parm Pasta. The 14 year old cooked. This meal was very tasty, but more soupy than expected.

Taco Tuesday: We went out to eat because our favorite Mexican restaurant was having music and Taco Tuesday specials.

Wednesday: Soup. I can’t remember, to be honest, but I think this was some kind of soup that I pulled from the freezer and re-heated.

Thursday: Tofu rice bowls. Sort of based on this recipe from NY Times Cooking, only I made the tofu from this recipe, and added edamame and used brown rice. I love a good bowl where each person can craft their own thing. Vegan-ish since I used honey.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Air Bud. It was my father’s turn to pick the movie and he wanted something that was a comedy. After some really inappropriate suggestions (including Booksmart, and something in French), we decided on Air Bud – it’s got dogs AND basketball – something for everyone in our family. I have to admit, I might have teared up more than once during this movie. I hear there are sequels…. Wait I just looked it up. There are FOURTEEN Air Bud movies. Ouf. Not sure if I will make it through all (or any) of them….

Well, that’s the bits and bobs of September so far here… this week is a short school week, and we’ll be celebrating a few birthdays, plus my parents are in town, so that will be fun.

Do you have a favorite National Park? Have you seen any Christmas Decor yet? How much would you pay to not stand in line for 20 minutes to fill your water bottle?

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Good-bye August, Hello September!

Well school has started. We have a new morning bus stop this year that is walking distance from home. It’s actually where the afternoon bus dropped off last year, but for some reason last year there was no morning stop. Well they’ve added one. It’s been picking the kids up at 9:20am every day, which is slightly problematic because school starts at 9:25am. The kids are upset because they don’t get to have breakfast at school. My thought is boo hoo. They get breakfast at home. (Breaking news! The bus will now come at 9:04am! It has opened up my morning in amazing new ways!)

This weekend is Labor Day, and we are off to the Renaissance Festival. Labor Day is late this year, so it doesn’t quite feel like we are almost a week into September. But September it is. So how was August?

August Highlights:
-Tech-ing a show and the one single performance. My friend coming to see the show and riding home with him afterwards.
-Our Indiana/Sarnia/Niagara-on-the-Lake/ Corning Museum of Glass/ Harrisburg, PA road trip.
-Swimming laps at the pool. Not having to rush to get to swim practice, but rather going on our own schedule.
-Submitting passport applications for the two younger kids.
-Read some really good books. (Reading recap coming soon!)
-Peaches! I have some canned for January.
-Lunch and walk with a good friend A.
-Dinner and walk with good friend K and The Husband.
-Slipping in one last Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends before school started.
-Purged the kids’ clothes and made sure they had clothes for the cooler weather.
-Decluttered our linen/medicine cabinet in the bathroom – things like bandaids, tampons and pads, COVID tests. We had so many masks from COVID times – like two drawers full. I’m torn on what to do with all the masks that I had sewn. On the one hand, I don’t think we’ll need them again, but on the other hand, they are an interesting memento of the times. Maybe I’ll keep one or two.
-Two small fresh figs from the fig tree on our back patio, harvested and eaten before the birds got to them.
-A day at the Maryland shore visiting my friend with good company, a relaxing pool, tasty food, and sheep.
-First Day of School! This year the kids are in 9th, 4th, and 1st grades.
-On that note – we have a high-schooler! My heart is bursts with pride watching her navigate life at high school.
-Favorite Dinner Cooked: Well all the dinners I cooked last week were given heart designations in my log. See Below. Also Crispy Tofu Tacos from NY Times cooking was a big hit.
-Favorite Things Watched: I think my favorite thing we watched was Derry Girls. We have one episode left and I’m so afraid to watch it and then have no more to look forward to. I also thought the Sheep Detectives was very entertaining.

Goals And Habits:
Painting: 2 (goal is 1/ week, so I’m falling behind.)
Crossword Puzzle: 1 (also wanted to do one per week. I didn’t bring puzzles with me on the trip, so there was some missed opportunities.)
Live Performance: Saw Wind in the Willows at the Shaw Festival.
Museums: 2 – Corning Museum of Glass and Niagara Power Station
Hike: 1 – Niagara Glen
Yoga: I logged 23/31 days. I might have done more days than that – I wasn’t great at habit tracking last month.
Run: 2 runs/ 5 swims.
Strength: 3x, all while on vacation because we stayed in places with nice fitness set ups. (Goal is 8/ month… wump wump)
Vegan Meals: 2 (goal is 4/ month or 1/week. We didn’t eat a lot of vegan dinners when we were on vacation.)

Clearly being on vacation is good for filling out some goals.

Quote(s) of the Month:
“There’s meaning in making something other people enjoy, something they look forward to, and talk about, and write their own stories about.”
-Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian.
Sometimes I question my career choice, and this quote reminded me that there is value in bringing joy to people and letting them feel emotions.

from This interview with Ina Garten in the New York Times:
 “I just love having a good time, and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t, so I always go toward that. I go toward people that are happy. I go toward people and projects that will be satisfying. Fun isn’t always like going down a water slide. Fun is building something with people that you care about. “
Earlier in the interview she talks about how “fun” for her is about having a process or task that engages her. I think this is so important – fun isn’t always joy, but it should be engaging.

“I never get tired of cookies!”
=The 6 year old. Yup. I totally agree.

August Lowlights
-Feeling behind at work. The nature of my contract is that I’m not full time during the summer. I sit in on meetings, but I feel like I’m not getting the full picture of what is going on because I’m not as active as I am when I’m on full time. It gives me a bit of anxiety to think about playing catch up in two weeks.

-Some really bad behavior on vacation that I’m not going to blog about, but it was really tough.

-Our fridge might have died. I’m not quite sure. It stopped working for three days and we ordered a new one, but then our old one is up and running again. Not sure if we should cancel the order of the new fridge or not?

-I feel as if between the vacation and activity sign ups and the fridge and random repairs we’ve been hemorrhaging money this past month.

-The time I forgot my kid’s voice lesson. I hate making stupid mistakes.

Looking Forward to in September:

-The youngest will turn 7! (I had a realization last week that we are 13 months from never needing a babysitter ever again since in Maryland kids can stay home by themselves when they are 8.)

-The Husband and I are going to a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass this weekend. I love this piece – I’ve worked on it, but never seen it. It’s not produced a whole lot becuse it takes a lot of people to put on. This production is kind of being done as a response to all the shit that’s going down at the Kennedy Center since MASS is the piece that opened the KC.

-Family Visit. My cousins are coming to visit, then my parents.

=Renaissance Festival! Going this weekend. fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain!

=Declutter projects. Maybe I should just set one goal for this? Okay – I think the freezer situation is dire and I would like to get a handle on the bins of yarn in my bedroom. That’s two goals. Manageable.

=Starting Hallowe’en costumes. The children have chosen! I need to figure out if I can make them or if I’m just going to buy them.

-Tap Dance classes. I signed up for a 7 week Intro to tap dance class. Here’s trying new things!

-Easing back into work. No shows to rehearse this month, but I have a supertitle gig to prep for and I have to prep for stage managers starting in early October.

Grateful for:
-Loaner fridge. When our fridge stopped working, we went to the local appliance place to buy a new fridge and they gave us a loaner mini fridge to take home. How cool is that? We have a fridge in the basement that we put everything in, but it’s a pain to constantly be going up and down the stairs. The loaner fridge is just big enough for milk and a carton of strawberries, but it’s enough.

-Trail to school. I’m hoping to bike with the 6 and 9 year old to school a few times this fall and I’m glad there is a bike trail most of the way there.

-Passport confirmations and patient post office managers. When we were waiting for our passport appointment, a man came into the post office in a bit of a frenetic state, cellphone stuck to his ear. He was on the phone on hold with the Passport people. Turns out, he had submitted an application a while ago with his girlfriend and his girlfriend got confirmation of materials received and got her passport, but he has heard nary a peep. He’s travelling in a month and, understandably he is in a state of worry and frustration. The conversation was seriously second hand stressing me out. The part of his conversation that really stuck with me was this exchange:
Post office Lady: Did you apply for a new passport or a renewal?
Stressed Out Guy: I applied for a new one.
POL: Is this your first passport?
SOG: I had one like twenty years ago. But then I had my daughter and… you know what, that doesn’t matter. But yeah, I had a passport before, but it’s been twenty years.
Something about the link between having a kid and his passport expiring really got to my heart.
The lady at the Post Office managed to talk him out of his tree and said she would try to find a paper trail on her end for his materials. He left, not rally mollified, but at least he seemed calmer.
It is such a leap of faith, the postal system, right? You put your things in an envelope and hope it gets where it’s going.
Anyhow, grateful that I got an email confirmation this week about the kids’ passport info and that the Post Office Lady calmly helped the frustrated man.

-That the pool is still open. Our pool is open Memorial day to Labor Day, and Labor day is late this year, so we’ve been able to go to the pool in the evenings. I’ve been embracing the 45 minute pool visit – we go after dinner, have enough time for me to swim laps for 20-25 minutes while the kids play. The pool is usually not crowded in the evenings and there is something so blissful about swimming under the pink sunset sky.

-That everyone had an uneventful first day of school. The bus came. The kids got on. The bus returned the kids to us at the end of the day. Hooray.

-Also this is super cool – the 14 year old is taking American Sign Language as her foreign language requirement for high school. Her teacher is Deaf and it’s fascinating to how he manages the classroom. I’m so grateful that the 14 year old has this opportunity.

-That my friend A, who’s husband had been posted to the Middle East for three years came home and we can have long walks and conversations. She’s been home since the Spring, but because they were sent home early, they’ve been living all over the area. Now they are back in their own home a few miles down the road. I’m glad they are safe.

-The 9 year old’s imagination. Yes, he asks for screen time constantly, but when I say not right now, he will go and play. He still gets dressed up and acts out scenarios (usually something to do with alien invaders), or constructs lego planes that he swoops through the house. The other day he said to me, “I’m grateful for my imagination.” Same, little guy. Same.

What We Ate: I was home most of last week to cook and we had some five star dinners.
Monday: Chickpea noodle soup from NY Times Cooking. Vegan. I was not sure how this was going to go over because it has a heavy hand of tumeric and nutritional yeast in it, but it went over like gangbusters.

Tuesday: Fish Tacos from NY Times cooking. This was SO easy to make. We’re trying to have more fish in our lives. We had our tacos with cabbage, pickled red onions, avocado, and chipotle sour cream.

Wednesday: Eggplant pork stirfy with noodles. The Husband cooked. Another 10/10. Not sure where the recipe came from, but it was delicious.

Thursday: Ginger catfish (Trey Cha K’nyei). This is a Cambodian-ish recipe that is so flavorful. There is a huge amount of julinned ginger in the recipe. The ginger gets cooked first in oil and gives the dish a crispy spicy bite. The recipe comes together really quickly; the hardest part is julienning all the ginger, but I used a mandolin and that made pretty quick work of it.

Friday: Pizza (The Husband made) and Karate Kid. Can you believe I’ve never seen Karate Kid? It’s really a great family movie and I enjoyed it. Also a young Elizabeth Shue – so luminous! Also – did you know there’s a show on Netflix called Cobra Kai, which takes place 30 years after the fact and revives the old Daniel vs. Johnny rivalry. We watched the first two episodes and it didn’t quite get off the ground, but Reddit tells me the show really finds its footing in season two.

Saturday: Dumplings and green beans at home. Dumplings from the freezer from our favorite dumpling house. This was our last bag so we need to get more…

Sunday: Tortellini with red sauce. Cut up veggies and fruit on the side. Our standard Sunday Supper.

That’s it from over here! Happy Labor Day Weekend for those that celebrate. And plain happy weekend for those having just another weekend!

Have you seen any of the Karate Kid movies? thoughts on cookies? How old were you when you started staying home alone? What has you excited about September?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tall Ships and Swim Meets

It’s July, and a scorcher of a weekend coming up for the July 4th Holiday. Two of the kids are at Taiwan camp, we’ll take the third kid up tonight, and then the Husband and I will be off at our reading retreat! The first full week of summer break has been a little … laissez-faire. I didn’t have to work every day; my mother, brother, and niece came to visit; everyone stayed up late and slept in. There were library visits, dentist appointments, and lots of time at the pool. The lack of routine is starting to leave me a little discombobulated, so I think some structure is needed… after this holiday weekend.

On Friday we went to Baltimore for Sail 250, a festival of Tall Ships from all over the world gathering in honor of America’s 250th birthday. There were three harbors in Baltimore lined with Tall Ships, but we only had time to visit the ships in the Inner Harbour. All the ships were open to the public to go aboard for free, and they all had sailors available to answer questions. I found talking to the sailors one of my favorite parts of touring the boats – it really brought a human touch to our experience. They all spoke varying degrees of English, and all were eager to answer questions to the best of their abilities and we always managed to understand each other.

I like to encourage the kids to be engaged when we have these experiences, so I told them that if they asked five questions on at least two different vessels, we could have ice cream later in the day. The 6 year old started out by asking the same question on all the ships (“How many people are on this ship?”) but then we told her that she had to come up with something more original, and she did. Hopefully the kids can learn to tap into their sense of curiosity and asking questions not just an annoying thing mom makes them do….

All the modern tall ships are training vessels, aboard which navel cadets learn about navigation and seamanship and engineering while at sea. Some ships are also ambassador ships that sail to different countries on goodwill missions. We visited five working ships as well as two vessels from Baltimore’s Historic Ship Museum. As a bonus, these Historic Ships that are always in Baltimore Harbour were free to visit as well during Sail 250. We visited the following ships:

NRP Sagres, from Portugal – On the upper level of this ship was several casks of Portuguese port. This ship had three steering wheels in the helm (am I even using the right words?) – well actually four: three for regular navigation all grouped together and one on the other side of the mast for emergency navigation.

Gorch Fock, from Germany – This ship was HUGE, probably the biggest one we saw that day. The Husband asked if they also had casks of alcohol, given that the Portuguese ship had port and they said they had beer. Then the Husband made some quip like, “I guess you like your beer warm.” To which the sailor replied, “No, that’s the English.”
The other best thing about this ship was the lady who came aboard carrying a dog. She would go up to the sailors and say, “Do you want to say hi?” Which would gain her some very confused looks. Then she would say, “I figured you’ve been on the sea for so long, you might be missing the chance to pet a dog.” It was both bizarre and really thoughtful.
One other thing I loved about this ship was getting a glimpse of the cook working in the kitchen. Kitchens aboard a ship are such models of efficiency. They have to feed over a hundred people with a kitchen the size of a closet.

ROU Capitan Miranda, from Uruguay – I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Uruguay flag before, and I loved how big and sunny it was, displayed on this ship.


My favorite thing that I saw on this ship was how neat an precisely the ropes were coiled:

Twenty years ago, the first opera I worked on for my current company was Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd (adapted from the Melville novella.), set aboard a Man-o-War. The opening scene featured the chorus and supers as Sailors rushing downstage and pulling ropes upstage from these neat coils. The stage managers spent so much time in rehearsal coiling ropes so that they would be set correctly and unfurl smoothly. So when I saw these ropes coiled on the deck of Capitan Miranda, I gave a gasp of recognition. Our ropes in the show had to be coiled like the circle in the background, not the figure eights in the foreground, but it was so cool to realize that we were doing something in rehearsal that sailors really did. I can’t even fathom how the figure eight coil is done. I might have to go watch a YouTube video on that.

USS Torsk – this was a submarine, built in 1944 and part of the Historic Ships collection in Baltimore Harbor. Visiting the submarine really brought home how close the quarters are aboard and also how efficiently space was used. The 14 year old ask the docent a question, about how accurate was the movie Crimson Tide. The docent laughed and said that while a lot of it was accurate, really the two movies which really capture life aboard the submarine were Operation Petticoat and Down Periscope. I immediately put those two movies on our movie watch list. The 14 year old also asked a very macabre question about how people are rescued from submarines when things go wrong.

INS Sudarshini from India – This was a smaller ship, but probably the one that came the furthest. It left India six months ago and sailed to America via the Suez Canal and through the Mediterranean. One thing that struck me about this ship was that all the signs and labels on the ship were in English – I asked the sailor about this and he said that there is a standard Indian English that they are all taught. Another thing I really liked about visiting this ship was that there were a lot of other American South Asians aboard and I loved seeing how they and the sailors would really engaged in conversations – imagine sailing half way across the world and finding people, hearing your language, from your home country in Baltimore!

USS Constellation – this was the second of the Historic Ships that we visited. It is a Sloop-o-War, built in 1854. This was the kids’ favorite ship because the second level below deck, were lined with canons. There was also one level – the level where the sleeping quarters were – that were lined with hammocks. I might have climbed into a hammock and dozed off for a few minutes. Here the 6 year old asked, “How do the ships get here?” meaning into the harbour, and we were told all about tug boats.

La Belle Poule from France – this was the last ship we visited and was one we made sure to visit since the two younger kids are learning French in school. (Well, technically, all three kids are learning French, but the 6 and 9 year old are in an immersion program and speak it more readily.) The 9 year old still hadn’t fulfilled his question quota by the time we got to La Belle Poule, so I made him a deal – if he asked his question in French then each question could count for two. And he did! He even asked THREE questions! “Is the food good?” “What kind of food do you eat?” and “Why is the ship called La Belle Poule?” This latter was funny because when I first mentioned this ship, the kids started calling it “The chicken boat” because poule/poulet is French for chicken. But apparently the ship is named after the King’s mistress. I think the French sailor was very amused by the little American boy talking to him in perfect French and I was really tickled by it as well. I’m feeling ready to send him to France on his own now! (Not really, but I feel like between my French and his French we’ll get by okay in parts of France outside of Paris…)

Ships bell- the placard on the wall has instructions on how to ring the time.
Kitchen of the Belle Poule.

In between ships we had lunch from the food trucks that were in the Festival area. By the point, everyone was pretty tired so I left them at the food demonstration tent (where they watched a chef make peach gazpacho) and I went to forage from the food trucks. I got Jamaican food and some pupusas. The interesting thing to me about pupusas is that I love them, but I never get a chance to eat them, so I was very excited to order some. However, pupusas show up regularly on the school lunch menu and the kids were decidedly not excited that this is what I brought them to eat. “This is school food!” one of the kid said. Well fine – they ate the Jerk chicken and beef patties instead. (The the 14 year old went to get tacos…)

So all in all, it was a really great excursion – the weather was sunny and hot, but not unbearably so, the ships were fascinating to visit and (with prodding) the kids displayed a minor amount of curiosity and engagement. Sail250 ran for five days and I wished we could have gone back for a second day and seen more ships, particularly since on the weekend there was an airshow as well. When we were there on the Friday, we got to see some of the planes practicing their maneuvers, which was loud and fun, especially the trio of planes that puffed out red, white, and blue smoke in their wake. Most of the practice runs were done over another harbour, though, so we didn’t catch as many as we could have on Friday. I would have also loved to see the ships actually put their sails up as they came in and out of the Harbour. But I think going on the Friday was a good choice because it wasn’t too crowded and the lines to board the ships weren’t too long.

Grateful For (so many swim team related gratitudes this week!):
-A drizzly swim meet. On Sunday morning, the 14 year old had a swim meet – this is one of the more fun meets of the year because it’s the Relay Carnival, which is all relay races. The 14 year old, though, was swimming in events 20 and 22 (out of 22) and the Coaches race (she’s not technically a coach, but the team coaches couldn’t participate for various reasons and the 14 year old does teach the pre-team, so they figured that qualified her to swim the coaches’ race.) All of which meant, we arrived at the meet at 8:15am for warm up, and she didn’t swim until 12:30pm. I’m giving her big props for staying engaged and warm and cheering on her teammates. But also – it drizzled steadily for the whole morning. It wasn’t thundering or raining hard enough for it to be dangerous to swim, so the meet just persisted. I had to time during the second half of the meet, and all our timing sheets were in plastic bags so they wouldn’t disintegrate. And the meet to a long time because there were a lot of disqualifications, which means those need to be cleared up before the next race can start. One parent did the math and said he figured each race was taking 15-20 minutes to run because of all the DQs.
But you know, there were moments when I was out there with rain dripping off my head, wiping my glasses clean for the umpteenth time, and I thought, “Well thank goodness it’s not 100 degrees and sunny.” Because, I think I would really rather work a rainy swim meet than a blazing hot swim meet.

Gentle rain on the pool….

-Stroke and turn judges. This one is also swim meet related – all the swim meets are staffed by parent (guardian/grown up) volunteers – the race coordinators, the timers, the referees, the people inputting the times, the stroke and turn judges. I have thought about doing the stroke and turn training, but I feel like I would feel bad about DQing a kid and it feels like a lot of pressure. But my friend who is a stroke and turn judge says that they are told not to think of it as DQing a kid, but rather giving the kid’s coach the information to help the kid be a better swimmer. If no one notes when a stroke is being done incorrectly, the swimmer can’t correct it. I really like that framing. I’m always worried about how to give feedback and thinking about it as wanting someone to do well is a good way to look at it.

-Libby and Little Free Libraries for making books easy to come by.

-Swim practice being rained out so that we could have Family Game Night instead. We played Dixit and had a lovely quiet evening at home.

-The Pool that hosted Wednesday’s swim meet for keeping the baby pool open for visitors. A lot of the time during a swim meet, the rest of the pool shuts down, but the pool where we had the Wednesday swim meet at kept the main pool and the baby open so people could still use them while the meet was going on. I had to bring the 6 year old along to the meet, so I was grateful that she could play in the water while her big sister swam.

-That my mother can still come visit us. My mother is 77 years old and still has the energy and inclination to come visit even though it means flying across the country. I’m realizing, especially since we had kids on the later side, that every visit from my parents is a gift and I am so grateful for each moment we all have together. She is also very independent and eager to take the kids on adventures – I’m grateful that I don’t have to worry about entertaining her when she is here; we can have life as usual, with a few extra adventures thrown in if we want.

-Online shopping. Okay, I know there are all sorts of ecological evils associated with online shopping, but I needed a new tankini top, and bathing suit shopping (well most clothes shopping, let’s be honest) is so disheartening for me. I’m very grateful that I could just order a bunch of tankinis from Title Nine and try them out at home. These are the two that I ended up with:

I feel a little frumpy at the pool, but the tankini is my swimwear of choice, particularly in a bright print – I can go to the bathroom easily, it covers my stomach, and these ones are also suitable for me to swim laps. I guess I’m just very practical pool-wise.

Looking Forward To:
-Our Reading Retreat! Is finally about to happen. I’ve also booked a tour of the Pennsylvania State Capitol while we are in Harrisburg. It’s going to be so hot! I almost regret not booking a place with a pool, but as long as we have AC and comfy couches, I think it will be a good time.

-Starting work on a new show next week.

-Hearing how the kids like Taiwan Camp.

-Listening to this audiobook on our drive to Taiwan Camp and Reading Retreat:

What We Ate:
Monday: Vegan Pesto Pasta Salad from NY Times Cooking. Meant to be an easy pool dinner, but it rained, so we ate it at home. Always a hit. Vegan.

Tuesday: Zucchini Boats. We had a bunch of zucchini to use up so I stuffed them with a ground beef/black bean/salsa mixtures, topped with cheese and baked. It wasn’t the idea pool food, but it worked well enough.

Wednesday: Sandwiches and leftover pasta salad at the pool for the swim meet. Though we also bought hot dogs and fries from the pool snack bar.

Thursday: Chicken pasta salad – based on this recipe for Cilantro Mint Lettuce Wraps from the NY Times. I had planned to make the lettuce wraps, but then we used the lettuce for salad, so I made the chicken into pasta salad instead, adding cucumbers and grapes for crunch. I don’t know that the fusilli worked – I probably should have used noodles – but I did like the flavors of this dish.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Operation Petticoat, 1959 movie starring Cary Grant, Tony Curtis and a submarine. We watched this after coming home from Sail250 because it was what the docent on the submarine recommended. This was such a delightful movie. Surprisingly, the kids all really enjoyed this one and asked, “Can we watch more movies that are funny like this?” So if anyone has any suggestions for screwball comedies with snappy dialogue, funny performances, and lots of physical humour, send them our way!

Saturday: Teriyaki Tofu and Steam Broccoli from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone. My brother is vegetarian, so I always use his visits as an excuse to make some of my favorite vegan/vegetarian recipes. This one is always a winner. I had to work this night, so I prepped it all and the 14 year old baked the tofu, steamed the broccoli, and made the rice.

Sunday: We went out for Hot Pot. My brother is from Berkeley, CA and has so much good food there, that I always hope he doesn’t get bored of the food options when he comes to visit us. One thing he always wants to do, though, is go to Hot Pot – I guess our Hot Pot has the best vegetarian options that he’s found anywhere. A new feature at our hot pot place, though:

They now hand out bibs and hair ties! We made good use of those bibs for the little kids, and I will say the adults probably should have used some too.

Well that was the week that was last. I hope everyone who is affected by this heatwave is staying cool this weekend. Happy Canada Day to those that celebrate, and Happy Fourth of July to those that celebrate that.

Do you have a favorite “classic” film? Have you ever been on a Tall Ship? Are pupusas a common food for you? What is your swim wear of choice?

(bi) Weekly recap + what we ate: Top Five/ Bottom Five- driving the van

How was the Memorial Day weekend, for those that are in America? I did choose going into nature with the family over spending the weekend home alone, but I didn’t leave until Sunday morning, so I had Saturday evening to myself – I went to dinner with my colleagues, came home, cleaned, watched some TV (Bridgerton – we finally got on the Netflix bandwagon.), read, and packed for the next day. It was a nice amount of time to have on my own.

It’s funny – I have often suggested the Husband go away on his own to get some alone time, but he always reminds me that wouldn’t be as nice because he wants to be home and have alone time. And I completely see that – there is something nice about a getaway, but there is also something nice about being in ones own house without external demands, a level of comfort and autonomy that I think is unique to having one’s own place to oneself. Also when you’re home you can tackle looming domestic tasks, which I think is also deeply satisfying. We probably don’t give each other enough of that kind of time….

Camping itself was a soggy affair. It’s been a wet Memorial Day weekend. I will say, it was mostly drizzle/dry/drizzle/dry while I was camping with the family. The Husband and kids (who had left the day before) and our friends got the brunt of the wet weather. They actually ended up going to the movies Saturday morning to get out of the rain. But still, the company was good and the air was nice. Our friend is a super camper – he brought tarps and many camp stoves, a camp sink, even a pizza oven. So we were not suffering in anyway. To be honest, most of the kids were on some sort of screen or another for a large chunk of the weekend – by the time I got there there were many fights over power banks because everyone’s device was running out of power (including the parents.) So it wasn’t the most disconnected weekend ever. Not my favorite thing, but I’m resigned to it. The kids did manage to go on a hike between rain showers; I feel like any amount of time in nature is a win, screen or no screen.

I slept in the hammock for the first time on Sunday night. It was a bit of a rough go at first, figuring out how to get into the sleeping bag, but once I figured that out, it was rather cozy. The next morning, it was nice to wake up with the morning air fresh on my face, listening to the rain on the rainfly. I will say the hammock is one of my favorite pieces of camping gear.

Monday morning, we made bacon and pancakes for everyone and the packed up the tent. On the way home, we stopped for lunch at a dumpling place near Hersey, PA, and then for ice cream at a dairy further south in Pennsylvania. We are our cones in the sun then went to see the calves that were just around back of the ice cream store.

Now that we are the other side of Memorial Day, I feel like we are into summer for reals. Our pool has opened. Swim team practice starts this week. The weather is still deciding between rain and sun, making the air a little thick and humid, but temperatures aren’t scorching yet, which is good.

Because of my longer commute for my summer gig, I’ve been driving the van a couple days a week, mostly because I was afraid of burning out the clutch on our Impreza as I sat in stop/slow/go traffic all the way home. I still don’t love driving the van, but I have to admit that there are some nice things about it. So here – in the spirit of Elisabeth – is my Top Five/ Bottom Five of our van.

Top Five:

Apple CarPlay – The Impreza still has a CD player and my phone doesn’t always connect automatically to the Bluetooth. The van has Apple Car Play (and whatever the Android version of that is) – so it is pretty seamless when I get in the car to have my maps, playlists, audiobooks, etc. just pop up nice and big on the screen display. I know this is probably standard technology in vehicles, but it’s new technology to me and it’s magical.

The van reads me my text messages – This might be part of Apple CarPlay, but I love that when a text comes in, I can have the van read it to me. And also I can, with the push of a button, dictate a text message to send.

The van is an electric-hybrid – With gas prices what they are, I’m glad I don’t have to fill up the van with gas every week. There’s actually a charging station at work, which is convenient. I think we maybe fill the van with gas once a month.

It’s not a manual car – The Impreza is a manual car, which is fine and actually can be fun, but you know when driving a manual car isn’t fun? Driving it in rush hour traffic. I do appreciate that the van has no clutch to worry about and won’t stall out on me. Or I guess, I’m the one who does the stalling when I don’t shift quite correctly. I do like driving the manual car, but it is nice not to have to worry about shifting once in a while.

The trunk – First of all, the trunk is huge! We needed to transport some stuff for work, and I had to throw eight music stands, two large tote boxes, a stool, five boxes of stationary, and heaven knows what else into the back of the van. Everything went in easily; it wasn’t even a tight game of Tetris. It sure is handy having a large trunk. ALSO – another of my favorite thing: The van has that feature where you can wave your foot under the trunk and the trunk will pop open. This is especially helpful when I have an armload the groceries (or some boxes of stationary…) and I can’t reach my keys.

Bottom Five:

The van is HUGE – It doesn’t really fit in my parking spot at work. I can’t reach over and open the passenger side door from the driver side. When we first got the van, I complained that riding in it was like riding around in a mobile living room. I do realize that the size of the van could also be a plus – see above point about the trunk. And I do like that the van is big enough that the kids can all sit an arms length away from each other. And the 14 year old likes that she gets the whole back row to herself. But on the whole, it feels like I’m driving a boat and I’ve definitely miscalculated the turning radius a few times.

There are too many buttons – There are four separate buttons I could push to close the back sliding doors. FOUR. That seems excessive. But that’s on par for the rest of the van – there are buttons above, buttons to the right, buttons to the left, all the buttons on the steering wheel, the display. The temperature control can be run by both the digital display and the manual buttons underneath it. Also there are buttons in the back to control the temperature. I still haven’t figured out how to adjust the temperature control in the car. I had to call my husband one time because I couldn’t figure out how to close the moon roof. Also it’s push button start … I never know how many times to push the button to get the van to turn on. I always don’t do enough. There are altogether too many buttons. What do they all do?????

The shift button is next to the volume button and both are round – yes this is a button thing, but it is so egregious it deserves it’s own point. Take a look:

On the left is a knob to shift gears (which in and of itself feels weird to me). On the right is the knob to adjust the volume. I can’t tell you how many times while driving I’ve gone to turn the volume down and accidentally put the van in reverse. That just seems so dangerous, no? This is just a terrible design choice.

It makes a lot of beeps and random noises – There are a lot of safety features on the van – which is a good thing! – BUT some of those safety features involve beeping or chiming when something happens – if someone is in your blindspot, if you go over the speed limit, if you get too close to the car in front of you…. Granted with the size and shape of the van, visibility can be poor, so it is helpful to have all the features, but there are some beeps that I just don’t know what triggers them, and it causes a mild sense of panic whenever I hear them.

The van is keyless – Again, probably not new technology, but just new to me. And really there is a lot that is convenient about keyless entry, but I’m such a fuddy duddy and the keyless thing bugs me. I hate that I don’t have to put a key in the ignition to start it or take the key out of the ignition to stop the car. Why? Because if I don’t have a place to put the key when I get in the car, I lose the key fob. Clearly this is a me issue and not a problem inherent to the van. But gaaaaah! It’s so annoying when I can’t remember where the key fob is. I’ll have it in my hand to get into the van and then somehow chuck it somewhere and when I get to my destination, I’ve forgotten where the fob is. Also, I haven’t quite solved the question of where do I keep the key fob when I’m driving. The Husband says it should just live in my pocket, but have you see the size of women’s pockets??? Anyhow, the keyless thing drives me nuts.

I suppose in the end, the positives of the van outweigh the negatives. The things that make it good for our family at this stage in our lives are pretty fundamental while the things that bother me are probably just pet peeves. I suppose in the long run, I’m grateful we have both a smaller car and a larger car for us to use. I am starting to think about the 14 year old and how she will be learning to drive soon and what that means for our next car purchase in terms of timeline and type. I don’t think she can learn to drive on the Impreza because it is a manual car, but I also don’t know if she should learn to drive on the van. So perhaps we will have to get another car within the next two years.

Grateful For:

-Rain fly over my hammock. The hammock is such a simple thing, but I get such joy out of it. I was very grateful that I could sleep outside in the rain while the rainfly kept me dry.

-Along those lines – camping with friends who have lots of gear so we don’t have to pack as much. While there was much that made camping frustrating – I have a note to buy everyone camp pillows and the Husband needs his own sleeping bag – I feel very grateful that a we didn’t have to bring too much extra stuff because our friends had so much stuff that camping seemed luxurious.

-My Bus Stop Mom friends. I managed to get off work in time to meet my bus stop mom friends for Happy Hour one night and it happened to be Trivia Night. We had a lot of fun. And learned what an obelus is! And came in second to last. I’m also so grateful to these ladies because one day a few weeks ago, I had to be at work at 9am. The school bus doesn’t pick up until 9:10am, so I texted them to ask if one of them could take my kids to the bus and they both said yes. So grateful to have friends who can help me out when I need it.

-The not quite summer weather. It’s been sunny and 70s and not humid lately. If the weather were to be like this until Fall, I would be so happy. But, alas, I’m sure heavy hot humidity is in our future soon, as is typical for the DC area. So I’ll soak in this cool summer weather as much as I can.

-Leftover McDonald’s. I went to see the show my company was putting on, which I wasn’t working. There’s a whole section of the show that takes place in a McDonalds and the Prop person had to bring in 2 quarter pounders with cheese, 2 cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, fries and apple pies to be used in the show. None of which got eaten. So after the show, I went to say hi to the stage managers and prop head and I said, “What’s going to happen to all that food?”
“Nothing, do you want it?”
“YES!” I exclaimed.
Now I don’t really go to McDonalds very often, but there is something about the cheeseburgers with their soft sweet buns and the slight tang of the pickles that I do love. And of course I have a weakness for fries.

-Also in the vein of free food – I’m grateful for my Canadian director for being such a sweet and thoughtful person. He was popping home to Canada for Memorial Day weekend and asked if anyone wanted anything. I said jokingly, “Ketchup chips and wine gums, please!”
Well… he brought not just me, but each member of the cast and staff, a bag of ketchup chips and a pack of wine gums! Of course I was really excited to get my favorite Canadian snacks, but even more so, I’m so glad I work with someone who is always thinking of other people.

Looking Forward To:

-Reading retreat! Inspired by Stefany, I suggested to the Husband that we go on a reading retreat the weekend the kids are at Taiwan camp. We’ve picked Harrisburg, PA because that is near camp and there are three or four bookstores there. I’m so excited to browse bookstores and hunker down and read.

-Watching more Derry Girls. We finally got Netflix a few weeks ago. We might be the last people on earth to jump on that bandwagon. I was for sure the hold out in the family – I thought we had enough streaming services. But after March Madness, the Husband cancelled YouTube TV and signed up for Netflix. I think we’ll keep Netflix through the summer and then when football season starts we’ll switch back to YouTube TV. I foresee many nights of watching KPop Demon Hunters in our future. But also – I’m super excited to watch Derry Girls – I had watched season 1 on the plane back from South Africa last year and really loved it.

-Pool time! Our pool is now open and swim team practice has begun.

-This week’s Maycember events (even though it is June) – Piano recitals (for the 9 year old and the 14 year old.). Voice recital (for the 14 year old.) Swim Team practice (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday – though not Friday because that is the piano recital), a birthday party to attend for the 6 year old. There are still 3 more weeks of school and I do feel like we are on a slow crawl to summer.

-Listening to more of this book -Once Upon a River – about a four year old that is pulled out of the Thames in 19th century England, and the three people who claim to know who she is. The Book has been a combination of engrossing and soothing, thanks in part to the excellent narration by Juliet Stevenson:

What We Ate (Two weeks’ worth, since I’ve fallen behind on posting this month):
Monday: Coconut Chicken Curry from NY Times cooking. I made a double batch, and froze half of it for later.

Tuesday: Chicken and Broccoli. The 14 year old cooked. (I was working and the Husband had happy hour plans with friends.) This was really tasty – she baked chicken chunks in the oven with a sweet and spicy glaze and steamed some broccoli to eat with it.

Wednesday: Can’t remember. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Bagels and smoked salmon.

Friday: Pizza and … some movie. I’m not sure what. This was the first weekend of Netflix, I think.

Saturday: The family was camping – I think they had steak. I went out for Tex Mex with work colleagues and had chile rellenos.

Sunday: Camping. Pizza and Caesar Salad. (Which, I learned during Trivia Night that Caesar Salad originated in Mexico.)

Monday: Snack dinner. We got home from camping this night and were tired. If it weren’t for the kids I don’t think we would have had dinner. But the 6 year old said, “Can we do that thing for dinner where you cut up cucumbers and cheese and eat it with crackers?” Yes! So easy and it makes people happy. (I had my leftover Tex Mex from Saturday, with a fried egg on top.)

Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos for Taco Tuesday.

Wednesday: Chicken and Broccoli. The 14 year old cooked again. The kids were actually off school, so the 14 year old took her brother and they walked to the store together and bought ingredients for dinner and then she came home and made dinner for everyone. It must have been tasty because there was nothing left when I got home, though the house smelled so good. I was told the recipe involved lots of butter and lemon, all good things in my book. She also make a chocolate cake (from a box) with buttercream frosting (from scratch). I myself was at Happy Hour, where I had fish and chips and a Greek Salad.

Thursday: Pasta Salad at the pool The first pool dinner of the summer! I made a caprese pasta salad – tomatoes, cucumbers, mozzarella, fresh basil, marinated white beans, and a parmesan balsamic dressing.

Friday: I think the family had some kind of sandwiches.

Saturday: Pizza at a friends’ house while they played Dungeons and Dragons. I wasn’t home in time for this, so I had snack dinner and went to the grocery store.

Sunday: Tortellini with red sauce, bagged salad, and watermelon on the side.

Well, that’s the news in this corner of the world as we turn the corner into June. I’ve been thinking lately about how much time I spend writing here, and it feels both like too much and not enough. May was clearly an overwhelming month – there wasn’t a lot of writing or reading/commenting on blogs, and yet the time I get squeak in felt like I was stealing that time from other things. I don’t know if I will feel like I have more space in summer – the long commute to work certainly eats into my time to tackle both the necessary and leisure things. Part of me wonders if I just need to declare that posting will be light – more for myself than for anyone else. Or should I just see where things fit… thoughts thoughts thoughts….

Anyhow, have a lovely week, as we look towards a new month!

What kind of car did you learn to drive on? What do you love/don’t love about your vehicle? Keyless entry – yay or nay? How do you feel about free food – yay? or yuck? Tell me what I ought to watch on Netflix! I like shows – both comedy or drama – about ordinary people trying their best not to make bad decisions while loving the people around them. Also soapy period dramas.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye April, Hello May!

When did it become May??? When did it get to be half way through May??? When did it become 3/4 of the way through May????? Can you tell I’ve been plugging away at this post for a very long time?

Well, I guess I started May in tech for a show. Then I worked supertitles for two recitals, started prepping for my summer show and also stage managed a one night gala performance. That’s four contracts in two weeks. (Five if you count my contract for admin work as head of the Stage Management department, which is indeed a separate contract.) And on top of that so many May-cember things. That is where May has gone. But… I like having these monthly reflections, so here is how April was, just as we are turning the corner into June.

April Highlights:
-The show I was working on. It’s a musical, so it’s been a really different experience for me since I primarily work on operas. Musical theatre performers are so very very fit and pretty. The combination of athleticism and grace of what they do onstage astounds me. And they were each of them so very kind and friendly.

-March Madness and basketball fever at our house.

-Cool Blogger’s Walking Club. I did participate and had a whole rainbow collage planned to show folks, but I never made it past yellow. Maybe I’ll still put the collage together.

-Take your child to work day. It was fun having the kids with me to watch rehearsals – they helped me set up tables for the scene we were doing and they helped me announce breaks. The performers were all so kind to the kids, and I’m grateful for that.

-going contra dancing as a family. Always a fun time.

-Farmer’s market trip and stumbling across the Black Health Fair and the collage-making workshop. It was a nice afternoon of art and swag.

-Hiking with kids. Finally went on a hike. First of the year. So far only of the year. I need to do better on this.

-Chorus Benefit concert. Our opera chorus holds a benefit concert every year. I’ve never been, but this year they asked if I would volunteer to stage manage and I said yes. The 14 year old came with me and was my assistant. It was really lovely to see the many chorus members and realize that I knew almost all of them. Some of them I’ve known for over 20 years. It is such a great community.

-Attending our friends’ B’not Mitzvah. So glad we got to celebrate this milestone with them.

-Grilling for the first time this year, one time when we hosted friends for dinner.

-First make-up buying excursion with the 14 year old. Thank goodness for the helpful lady at the counter.

-The AC in our office at work got fixed! It was amazing.

-My mother’s visit.

-Discovering Frixion Markers – erasable markers!!!!

-Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends.

-Easter and Easter Service at our church, which is a vivid multicultural affair.

-Favorite Dinners this month: Steak Fajitas from NY Times Cooking. Grilled Teriyaki Chicken, using the Teriyaki sauce recipe from America’s Test Kitchen Vegan cookbook. (The recipe is for teriyaki tofu, but the sauce works just as well on Chicken).

-Favorite movie watched: A Nice Indian Boy – a lovely rom com with some lovely people in it.

April Lowlights:
-Some delicate dynamics at work. Not bloggable, but it was tricky to navigate.
-Not being home a lot and feeling out of touch with the family.
-Teenagers. Gotta love them, but man….
But over all not a lot of lowlights in April. Or maybe the things that were tough at the time now seem figure out-able. I feel like it’s the same things all blurring together in my head that make life seem overwhelming, while the things that make me happy or brought me joy all are very specific in my head.

How I did on my various goals:
Creativity:
-Painted two pictures. (8/26 pictures for the year)
-wrote 3 haikus (13/52 haiku for the year… need to do some catching up on this.)
-1 hike. (1/12 so far this year – not doing so well on this goal)

Consumption:
– 1 live performance – Alisdair Fraser and Natalie Haas concert. It turns out this is the farewell tour for this fiddle and cello duo. I’m so glad we got to hear them play live.
-0 Museums. (3/12 for the year so far. Though we got free passes for the Phillips collection at a community event, so maybe that will happen in June.)

Health:
-4 sessions of strength training. (Goal was 8, but something is better than nothing.)
-Daily yoga – 30/30 days.
-5 vegan dinners. (Goals is 5/ month, so yay! This is making up for May where we’ve barely had any vegan dinners so far…)
-1 run. (Exercise was not a strong suit of mine in April.)

Quote(s) of the Month:
“I use he/they pronouns, but use whatever pronouns you want for me as long as you use them with respect.”
One of the performers in my April show said this on the first day of rehearsal as we went around and introduced ourselves.

“Our talent is our floor, but our character will be our ceiling.” Cori Close, UCLA Women’s Basketball coach.

Looking forward to in May (many of which have already come and gone):
-Well, the middle school musical was a big thing in our calendar. I’m kind of sad that it’s done and past. It was for sure a highlight of the month so far. The 14 year old was playing the lead – Marian in The Music Man, Jr. It was so amazing to see her onstage and to hear all the lines we’ve been running in context, and to hear all the songs she’s been practicing. I’m so incredibly proud of her for working so hard on this show. I felt like my heart grew every time I saw her onstage.
-Stage managing a gala concert. I feel like I’m being pushed outside my comfort zone with this one. It’s so very different from anything else I’ve done before – barely any rehearsal, big names, and one shot to get it all right. It actually makes me a little sick to think about it, but I’ve been reading the book Mindset by Carol Dweck and her writing is inspiring me to look for opportunities to learn and grow. (This also just happened and it was a doozy getting there, but ultimately a really good experience.)
-Starting my summer show. And a long commute.
-listening to lots of audiobooks because of above commute. (Looking for suggestions!)
-The pool opens Memorial Day weekend! Swim team starts.
-A potential quiet house over Memorial Day weekend because the Husband is taking the kids camping with friends. (Update! I think we are getting Sunday and Monday off for Memorial Day weekend, so I might drive up and meet the family after work. Time in nature with family vs. time in a quiet house by myself…. it’s a tough decision, I have to admit.)

Grateful For (so far this month.)
-Middle school theatre and music teachers. Actually teachers in general.

-our van. I don’t like driving the van, but it does come in super handy sometimes. Like when I have to take 10 music stands, a stool, and two large bins of office supplies to our Gala location.

-Speaking of Gala – for finding free parking downtown. I had pre-paid for parking via SpotHero (do you know about SpotHero? It helps you find parking spots. We use it to book parking space at an airport hotel when we fly- it’s so much cheaper than airport parking.), but ended up finding free parking a block from our venue both days I had to be downtown. I was then able to give my pre-paid spot to my work BFF.

-All the people at work. What we’ve done at work is… I mean we’re not doing open heart surgery on infants or anything, but we had a massive pivot earlier this year and it’s been an amazing and challenging time. Everyone I work with has put in at least 110% to make opera happen and I’m grateful.

-A visit from my parents. I feel so lucky that my parents (who are 75 and 80) still have the energy and mental sharpness to travel to see us.

What We Ate: I’m afraid I don’t have much to report here because I’ve made it home for dinner only a handful of times so far this month. There was food. The family ate. No one went hungry.

So that’s a wrap on April. Aside from my horrendous commute, the next few weeks look a little calmer, and I hope to get back to writing here more regularly. Hope your May has been lovely and warm.