gratitude – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: thwarted plans

Last week’s pristine snow has turned soft and slushy, grey with dirt and continued living. Life going on. That’s okay. I hear there is more snow coming this weekend and next week.

I was down at the Mall on Friday (more on that below) and I saw rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of chairs set up for inauguration. I texted my friend/coworker and said “It makes setting up a room for a 65 person chorus rehearsal seem paltry.” The whole Mall was surrounded by temporary gates and to get from the Smithsonian metro stop to the National Gallery of Art was an exercise in finding the doorways. I walked down one football fields’ length of chairs to find worker scrambling at the other end to put the chairs away. I did not envy those workers, having to set up, then take down a mile’s worth of chairs. The whole experience was very much one of those, “Yep, you live in D.C.” type things. Every Inauguration is unique, I’m sure, but this one seems more unique than others. Here comes another era….

It has been a frustrating few days. Plans just… not working. Why do I make plans? Case in point:

1)First scuttled plans: I really really wanted to catch Paris 1974 Impressionist exhibit at the National Gallery of Art before it closed this weekend. (Okay, never mind that in typical fashion, I’ve left it to the last minute. I should have just gone in September when it opened). I had a morning off from work this week, so I thought, “I’ll just pop down to the museum and take and hour or so to see the exhibit.” One of the wonderful things about living in the suburbs of D.C. is that there are so many free museums and so going to see art doesn’t require a special trip; I can just stop in and see something and then be on my way.

Well, it didn’t exactly work out like that – the entire city is getting ready for a National Special Security Event – this is literally what it is called in the email about road closures they sent at work . All the blocks and blocks and blocks around the National Mall were EMERGENCY PARKING only, and have been since the beginning of the week. Typically if you go in the morning it’s actually not difficult to find street parking near the mall, but on Thursday there was no place to park. I probably should have known and just metro-ed to the NGA. I circled for ten minutes then gave up and went to work. On the bright side, I instead called my sister in law and took a walk outside and saw the beautifully frozen Potomac River.

I thought maybe I’d go on Saturday before my show, but when I checked the NGA website it turns out that the museum was closed on Saturday for security reasons. So that left Friday. After a frustrating Friday morning (frustration #2 this week, see below), I finally made it to the museum. (See above’s adventure of walking the Mall three days before Inauguration.) Only when I got to the museum, the line for the Impressionist exhibit was TWO HOURS long. At that point, I thought that maybe I wasn’t meant to this exhibit. So I took a little wander around the permanent collection instead, which is really lovely and I don’t go see it enough. I had forgotten that there were three Vermeers in the permanent collection. What a lovely surprise to be wandering the galleries and then suddenly see these delicate works of beauty and light. So the trip wasn’t a complete wash after all.

2) Second scuttled plan. I had earmarked Friday as the day to finally take my car in for donation. You might recall, I have a 20 year old Subaru Legacy Wagon that was clearly in need of more work than we were going to invest in it anymore. I think it has 190,000 miles on it. I had bought it off my boss eleven years ago when the oldest was born and I had resigned myself to needing a car to do daycare pick ups and drop offs and other emergency errands. (When the oldest was born, the Husband said to me, “We have a kid now. For everyone’s safety and security you need to get a car and a smartphone.”) I am unreasonably attched to theis car – it came from someone really iportant in my ife and has eeen me through so much. But it was time for the car to move on from us. Probably beyond time. I was going to take it to an Automotive Training program at a nearby high school, where they would either fix it up, or use it for parts. Friday morning, cleaned out the car – discovering many hidden things, and throwing out a lot of masks, and boy didn’t that take me back to a time – remember when we just kept packs and packs of masks in the car? The car had been sitting for at least a few months undriven in our driveway, so I turned it on to make sure it would start and then – and this was my big mistake – I turned it off to finish cleaning it out. I really should have driven it around to charge the battery a little bit. When I finished cleaning the car, I tried to start it again and IT WOULDN”T START! And then, I couldn’t shift it out of park or take my key out of the ignition. I spent half an hour trying to get the key out of the ignition and get the car to start. I googled, watched YouTube videos, searched Reddit. My friend even came over to help me jump the car. NOTHING WORKED. ARGH!!!! I finally get the courage up to donate my beloved car and… wump wump. I just felt so. very. defeated.

Anyhow, bright side – the Husband managed to get the car started while I was at the Museum. And we will re-schedule the car donation. Typical of me, I left this til the very last minute so there is now a sense of urgency about getting the car off our hands before it becomes inconvenient in terms of insurance and car registration. The whole thing made me feel so incompetent at adulting.

In other life things –
-I’m done working on shows for a few months. I had my last show for a while this past weekend, and I’m grateful to be on the other side of Fall/Winter opera season. I feel like things have been non-stop since September. The show went well and people were pleased. We performed a series of 20 minute newly commissioned operas. It’s always fun to do new pieces. These ones weren’t particularly tuneful, but there were snippets that lodged in my head anyway. I said to my ASM, “When these new works get stuck in my head, it’s clearly a sign that I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to them!

-Adult Lunchables! I bought these linch containers for our trip to Asia, filing them with snacks for the plane. This past week, there was one day when the contents of our fridge looked dire – not quite enought to pack a full lunch. And I had the idea to pack a snack lunch with these containers. I packed: carrots, candy cane beets, hummus, blueberries, and a soy marinated egg. It was a surprisingly satisfying lunch.

-A good morning – I feel like I’m constantly trying to find the ideal morning routine. I think one of my biggest hurdles is that a good morning routine starts the night before with a consistent bedtime and my bedtime routine is crap. Partly this is working in the evenings so not being home consistently, but also a lot of it is Revenge Bedtime Procrastination. I’m trying to nail down a better evening routine for the nights that I am home. And for the nights that I work, I’m trying to stick to just going straight to bed when I get home. If I’m in bed before midnight then I can be up earlier. A couple times this past week, I was up by 6:15a, had a really great morning rhythm. I wanted to write it down so I can come back to remember how it’s done:
6:10am – wake up.
6:15am – 6:40 – 20 minute yoga (I’ve been loosely following Charlie Follow’s thirty day yoga challenge – I like it because it is gentle – maybe a little too gentle, but I add in an extra down dog if I need to – and also there is no music. On days when I can’t do the whole 20 minutes, I just choose another, or do a few sun salutations.) Yes, this 20 minute yoga takes 25 minutes because… kids. If I have time, I also do 10 minutes of strength.
6:40-7:10 – Read. (Current morning book is The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois)
7:10 – 8:10 – Breakfast/pack lunch. (Sometimes the Husband gets the kids breakfast when they get up at 6:15a. Often times they are hungry again by 7a. Or just bored and want more food.)
8:10-8:30 – putter/pick up/ get the 5 year old out the door (The neighbor takes her to daycare and I take their 2nd grader to the bus)
8:30-8:45 – journal.
8:45 – school bus alarm goes off and we head out the door.
Things to think about:
-I didn’t prep dinner these days, which I sometimes do and that usually takes 20 minutes of the morning.
– When I don’t go to bed before midnight, I usually sleep til 7am and then the morning is just about packing lunches and getting kids out the door. Of course, when I’m up by 6:15am, I am so so so so tired by 9:45pm. It’s a trade off. I can’t be tired at 9;45pm when I’m working an evening rehearsal.
-My two younger kids are early risers. They usually are downstairs the minute they realize the Husband is up (He gets up at 5:30am). I’d would like to figure out how to give him more quiet/ child-free time in the morning because he likes to read in the morning. But the kids also like to cuddle and want breakfast. Maybe I need the kids to be more in charge of their own breakfast?
-I’m really glad we’re at a point in our lives when the kids can all get ready by themselves. I barely see the 13 year old in the morning. She wakes up just in time to shower, grab random food out of the fridge, and then head out the door for school. The two little will get dressed and pack their school bags by themselves. Mostly.
-I wouldn’t mind more time to journal/plan the day. Or doing it earlier. Maybe I should journal/plan earlier in the day and read in the slot right before the school bus alarm goes off?
We’ll see how this morning routine goes. As always, it’s easier to have a routine/rhythm when I’m not working inconsistent hours. It always goes out the window once I’m back in rehearsal. I’m trying to tell myself these next few months are the time to establish a routine until I’m back in rehearsal. But I think I also have to remind myself that having a sporadic routine does not make it any less of a routine – there are cycles to life, you know?

-My mother sent me a box of oranges and lemons from her trees in Southern California. The oranges are sweet and juicy, perfect taste of sunshine on a grey January day.

Grateful for:
– Free Museums: It felt almost guiltily indulgent, to be able to go through the National Gallery of Art slowly, spending five minutes on a single painting, looking a brush strokes, and colours and thinking about the people in the painting and the artist who created them. But such is the wonderful things about living in a city with free museums – you can afford to spend five minutes, or ten, or sixty, on one painting because you can always come back to see the others. Tax dollars at work here (and donors and philanthropists), and for that I’m grateful.
–Winter. I was thinking this week, as I moved through snow and cold and bracingly brisk air – How wonderful it is to live somewhere with four seasons! Yes snow and cold can be tedious and hard to navigate, but there is something extraordinary about nature telling us when it is time for a slower pace and to rest. (Or maybe this is something very ordinary?) There is something about feeling the wind on your face when you step out the door, to remind you that you are lucky to be alive to feel this bitter cold on your skin. I think about how, if you live somewhere where there aren’t four seasons, how you miss out on being forced to adapt and cycle your life routines and patterns.
–My Friend L – I know she makes this list a lot, but I feel so grateful to have a friend who will pick up nuts for me at Costco, or “Kosher Takis” at Trader Joe’s, who will come help me jump my car, and drive me home after work.
–The Husband who actually did manage to jump the car. And who was home with the kids all week while I was in tech.
–Romance novels – I’ve been tearing through Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series and I love the books so much (well, maybe not the third one…). I’m glad there are people out there writing these cozy, angsty, escapist reads, perfect for curling up with a cup of tea in chilly weather. They make me so happy.

Looking Forward To:
–Monday off with the kids. Sometimes when we have these days off, I think about taking the kids on an adventure to a museum or something. But going to the Mall on Monday will be… ill advised. We had thought about going up to Baltimore, but with the forecasted snow, we thought it best of we stayed home. So the family brainstormed a list of cozy things to do at home. MLK Day will involve:
-baking (scones AND cookies)
-reading. (the Husband is on Do NOT disturb reading time until 7am)
-sledding
-hot chocolate
-movie
-Soup or dumplings
-board/card games
-30 minutes of cleaning out the toy room (okay, I admit, I put this on the list)
-piano
-laundry. Maybe. Hopefully.
This all seems really aspirational, but if we even do a couple things on the list and don’t yell at each other (too much), I will count the day as a win.

–The middle child’s birthday party. It will be at the duck pin bowling place. Should be lots of fun and low key. I can’t believe the little guy will be eight!

–Hadestown! The kids have a random Wednesday off in a few weeks, and I on an impulse I checked train tickets to New York, and they were surprisingly not too expensive – $120 round trip, half that for the 7 year old. And then I thought, “What can we do there?” and it turns out the last week of January is Broadway Week and certain shows have 2-for-1 tickets. I managed to snag tickets for Hadestown for $80 each. I never do anything so impulsive (I think it says something that booking a day trip two weeks out is impulsive for me….), but I wanted to do something fun, so I did it. I’m not actually familiar with Hadestown, but everyone seems to love it, so we are listening to it in the car and brushing up on our Greek Mythology. I feel like “the fun mom” for once in my life.

–Cool Blogger’s Book Club! L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle is the pick for the latest go round of Engie’s bookclub. I’m so excited. Now I just have to located a copy of the book – there are none available in my library system!

–Just started this audiobook. Grisly, but fascinating. I don’t know that I’ll finish it because I have a bit of a weak stomach, but I can’t stop listening to it.

What We Ate: The Husband was in charge of dinners this week, as I worked most nights.
Monday: Tortellini and red sauce.

Tuesday: The family had dinner out. I had rehearsal in the afternoon then a supertitle job in the evening. I had yogurt for dinner.

Wednesday: Pork chops. I think I had yogurt for dinner again.

Thursday: I had leftover chicken soup from last week. The Husband made tofu zucchini boats at home.

Friday: Pizza and Skeleton Crew. The 13 year old has basketball practice again on Fridays so we are back to having pizza and tv rather than pizza and movie. Skeleton Crew is the latest Star Wars series on Disney plus.

Saturday: I’m not quite sure what the rest of the family ate, to be honest. I worked this evening and ordered from a new to me place called Seoul Spice since folks at work were putting in a group order. Everyone at work raves about this place and it was indeed very tasty. It’s kind of like Korean Chipotle – a bowl with lots of things and then sauce. There was kimchi! Which is always a winner in my book.

Sunday: Our friend came over to watch football and brought chili.

What would you put in your adult lunchable/snack box? I’m obsessed with this idea now! What are your top cozy day activities? Are you bracing for more winter?
Hope you have a restful week!

Weekly recap + what we ate: hello 2025! Snow! Jet lag!

I feel like this past week was truly the first week of 2025 for me since we were still in Asia until the 4th. Coming back was rough – our connection in Seattle was delayed by 2.5 hours, so we were at SEA for seven hours total. Here’s the math – we left our hotel in Kuala Lumpur at 9am local time on Friday January 3rd, which is 8pm on Thursday January 2nd in Maryland. We pulled into the driveway at home at 8:3oam on Saturday January 4th. That’s a freakin’ long time to travel. 36 hours – hotel to taxi to plane to plane to plane to car to home. The world is big, friends. (Although, Earth is the third smallest planet – I can’t imagine what travel would be like on Jupiter…)

When we got home, we unpacked and zombied our way through the rest of the day. I was determined to battle jetlag and keep the kids awake until 8pm, which would be close to their regular bedtime. I lost that battle badly. We did an okay job of staying up on Saturday – there was a brief nap Saturday afternoon and we went to bed around 10pm – I was hoping the late bedtimes would help the kids stay in bed later. Nope. Sunday morning the kids were up at 4am. Sunday afternoon, I tried to keep everyone awake and we were all passed out in the living room by 4pm. I was seriously worried about whether or not the kids would survive school the next day.

But guess what? I didn’t have to worry about that. Because … SNOW DAY!

There was one point the week before, when we were in Kuala Lumpur and it was 90 degrees outside and I said to my Husband, “Let’s remember this feeling because next week we will be COLD.” Sure enough late Sunday night it started to snow and before we went to bed, the schools had declared a snow day. Both the Husband and I were supposed to work on Monday. His work ended up being closed. I worked from home. (Thanks to the Husband who wisely told me to go get my laptop from my office on Sunday night.). Even though I was very much looking forward to sending the kids to school, – after all we were at Day 16 s of togetherness – I saw the snow day as a blessing in that the kids had one more day to get back on schedule.

It was a cozy day of puttering. Is there anything more cozy than a blanket of snow outside and warm tea and wool slippers inside? We shoveled some snow. The neighbors invited the kids over to play in their yard. I did some work, had a few meetings. In mid afternoon, I logged off work and we all went sledding with our neighbors. Sledding was super fun. I was at first a little nervous about the hill they chose because there are several trees on this hill and – well have you ever read Ethan Frome? I read it in high school and (spoiler alert) there is a gruesome accident that involves a sled a tree and the loss of hope and happiness. As one does in an Edith Wharton book. So I wasn’t terribly eager to go sledding on this hill.

But turns out, a hill full of trees is a great opportunity for kids to learn how to steer a sled. We did manage to put a hole in our sled, but I think it still works great. And there were several face plants into the snow and tears. Afterwards, the seven year old notes that “Stumps are worse than trees. If you hit stumps you’ll fly off. If you hit a tree, you’ll just fall over.” But all in all, nothing that couldn’t be solved by hot chocolate afterwards.

Tuesday – another snow day. Crisp and clear. Both the Husband and I worked from home. Around three, I took the kids out for a snowy walk. The house was starting to become a bit of a pit. Kids fell asleep around 4:30pm. We woke them up for dinner, which was kind of a sad lethargic affair.

Wednesday – yet ANOTHER snow day. It was no longer snowing, but I guess there were schools up county that were still treacherously icy, so all the schools remained closed. The kids had piano lessons – fortunately moved to 9:45am rather than the normal 7:15am. Though honestly the kids were already up at 5:30am, so we could have made a 7:15 lesson with bells on. I took the metro into work in the afternoon, since that seemed more relaxed an option than driving. Home in time for dinner. Kids and I passed out at the dinner table at 6:00pm.

The kids finally went to school on Thursday and Friday. THANK GOODNESS.

This weekend we’ve been back into the swing of kids’ activities. Basketball season has started for the oldest kid – she’s playing in the rec league as well as on her middle school team. The little kids have skating lessons, and then there’s agility class for the 5 year old and the 8 year old will be doing a goal tending clinic with his soccer league. It’s also football playoff season and college basketball season, so I think we’ll have a combination of out and about and home on the couch this winter.

Other news: We have a teenager! The oldest turned 13. Every year we get through the new year and I realize that I haven’t done anything to prepare for the oldest child’s birthday. Every year, I vow to do better. I did not do better this year. I did exactly nothing for her birthday. We sang happy birthday, we had a very long family scheduling meeting and then I went to work. The two little kids made her a card and the Husband bought her a cake which we ate later in the evening. On the one hand, I don’t love celebrating my own birthday, so other people’s birthdays don’t always register for me. On the other hand, I need to recognize that birthdays are special to some people and honour that. (Okay, typing that out, I’m realizing that maybe the day that I gave birth and we became parents for the first time should hold more significance for everyone. I know!)

The oldest actually got invited to another kids’ birthday party on her birthday. Our former neighbor’s kid was having a party and they invited our kid along, so she spent the day running errands with the Husband and then our former neighbors picked her up and took her to their kid’s party. When the other family found out it was her birthday too, they bought her a special dessert and then took her to Dave and Busters. How awesome is that?

I can’t believe that we have entered into teenage years! Okay, one thing now, though, I can legally leave all the kids at home. In Maryland, kids have to be 13 in order to stay home with other kids. (They have to 8 to stay home alone). I don’t want to take advantage of the now-13 year old, so I want to think through whether or not she should get paid if we ever do leave her at home with the other two kids.

Grateful For:

-Neighbors to spend snow days and birthdays. It was nice to hang out with our neighbors while sledding this week. They let us take a run down the hill on their toboggan and it was a wild ride. And I’m also grateful for our former neighbors who made sure the 13 year old had a good birthday even though they weren’t originally celebrating her.

-Base layers. I took the metro to work a couple of days last week so that I wouldn’t have to deal with driving in snow and slush. It’s about a ten minute walk on either end. I’m really grateful for wool/silk base layers to keep me warm.

-Hand me down winter coats and snow pants. While we’re on the topic of winter gear – I don’t think I’ve purchased a winter coat or pair of snow pants for the two little kids in four years because I have a friend with twins who passes down her winter coats and snow pants to us once her kids outgrow them.

-That my mom is okay still. My mother lives about 10 miles south of the Eaton fire in the LA Area. She is not concerned about having to evacuate because she isn’t in the mountains, but even still I’m worried. I also have an aunt and two uncles in the same area. I texted my mom to ask her how the air was and she said, “Bad.” The mass of humanity that the fires are affecting is heartbreaking.

Looking forward to:

-Filling out reflection workbooks. I was looking for a more concrete way to reflect on my 2024, and look forward to 2025, and I found two (free!) reflection work books online that looked interesting, so I’ve printed them up and want to work through them. One is Year Compass and one is by Susanna Conway called “Unravel Your Year“.

-A busy week at work – I have a recital that I’m doing titles for, and then a little semi-staged evening of newly commissioned 20 minute operas. It’s going to be a busy week, but I’m working with some great people, so I’m looking forward to being at the theatre.

-And then work downtime for a while – after this week, I don’t have another show to work on until the end of March. I do have to do some work for next opera season and there’s some paperwork I want to update, but it won’t be evenings and weekends. I’m looking forward to two months of working at a quieter pace.

-Library book stack – on the Sunday we got back, in an attempt to get out of the house and keep kids awake, we went to the library where I checked out this stack of books to start my 2025 reading. (Actually The Riddle of the Sphinx and This is So Awkward were renewals that I haven’t finished yet.) I love browsing books and just picking up what looks good:

What We Ate:
Saturday: Pizza and This Means War. We’re moving away from animated features for movie night. This 2012 movie stars Reese Witherspoon as a market researcher caught between two rival CIA partners/rivals, played by Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy. It was a lot of fun, perhaps a little risque for the littles – good popcorn entertainment.

Sunday: Sandwiches. I think we were all still really jetlagged and this was what the Husband fed the kids when we realized that even though everyone was falling asleep standing up, we should probably still make an effort to feed them. Thank goodness ehs’ here.

Monday: InstantPot Coq au Vin. Disappointingly more soup than stew, but still tasty. Though I think only 1 of the 3 kids stayed awake long enough to eat this.

Tuesday: Brussel Sprout Nasi Goreng, pan fried tofu on the side. We had a bunch of Brussel sprouts in the fridge from before we left on vacation so I made this -it’s my go to recipe for Brussel sprouts. I love this recipe from Meera Sodha. It’s really tasty and also a great way to get everyone to eat Brussel Sprouts. Vegan.

Wednesday; Coq au vin from Monday, reheated. Not what I originally planned, but quick easy meal on a busy snowy day. I think I’m going to lean into the cook once, eat twice meal this year. Although, we don’t have a microwave, so I need to figure out best methods of reheating food.

Thursday: Breakfast sandwiches. The Husband made dinner since I didn’t get home from work til 8pm.

Friday: Pizza take out. I worked, came home, and fell asleep before the Husband got back with the pizza.

Saturday: Pizza take out (take two) and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the 2005 movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as assassins unknowingly married to each other. I got home when the family was half way through this movie and made the family watch it again from the beginning after we got to the end. I was hoping there would be some kind of plot if I watched it from the beginning. There is not plot. Just a premise. And lots of action sequences. The kids really loved this movie.

Closing another show, and panic buying for the next adventure.

It’s been a really long week of tech and performances. Eight days straight without a day off. But even though it’s been a little bit of a grind and there’s been some really special and amazing things going on. Things I want to remember:

-The make-up artist – One of our singers got sick and when I went to tell the make-up crew, the make-up artist A, who does that singer’s make up said jokingly, “Well I guess I’ll just be bored.”
And I said, also jokingly, “You could put me into the Tiger make-up.”
And she said, “I’ll totally do that. Come back in five minutes.” Which is kind of hilarious because I don’t think I’ve worn make-up since before the pandemic, maybe even longer. So I came back in five minutes, and A gave me Tiger eyes:

I’ll never look this cool ever again. Also notice how those eyes make my unwashed hair look great?

-The stage crew – We had something come up, and I went to the crew and said, “Can you do X so that Y can happen?” And they said, “Why don’t we do W instead so that Y can happen?” And W was a much better solution for Y than I would have ever thought. I mean X was a petty crappy solution for Y in the first place, but it was the simplest option. And just the fact that the crew thought of this more complicated, but better solution to the problem, and went to another theatre to get the parts to make it happen, and they did it without being grumpy about it… The whole things just made me really grateful to be working with them.

Also- when one of the performers forgot to go onstage with their prop thorn, and then told the director that they didn’t know where to find it, the crew helpfully did some labelling to help the singer:

-The crew member who showed up for a show in a full on bear costume. I have no words to describe the delight I felt when I saw him. I have to say the stage crew at this theater is my absolutely favorite crew to work with.

-The visit from Secret Service. There was a VIP at one of our shows, and the number of secret service people everywhere was surreal. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It blows my mind that being surrounded by this many security people is just life for some people. Also – the very ordinary-ness of the security detail. I guess that’s kind of the point. This was also the night that the singer called in sick, and we had to call in someone to sing the role. This isn’t the kind of role where there are lots of people who knew it – the guy we brought in literally looked at the music for the first time at 11am that morning. That whole day was just bonkers all around.

-Having the 12 year old in my show. Riding home in the evenings with her, blasting show tunes in the car and singing along.

-The after party on the last night. A parent had reserved a local pizza restaurant after hours so we could go there. It was everything you’d think an after party with 30 kids would be – loud, raucous, lots of singing, and love flowing like the wine.

-Just the energy and positivity of everyone who worked on this show. There is something in the air, I think, when you do a show with kids for kids because the experience is just as much for the kids onstage as for the kids in the audience. And everyone realizes what a special and potentially life-changing week this could be. Making opera is my job. It’s what I (incredibly) get paid to do. And when it’s your job, sometimes you forget to savor the joy of it – it’s just another night at work. But when you do it with kids, many of whom had never done anything on this level, you realize that you can’t phone it in. The performers and the audience don’t deserve that.

Now that I’m done opera-ing for a few weeks, I can catch my breath, have some time to relax and prep for our winter break trip.

There was an article in the Washington Post last week about panic buying before a vacation or trip. THIS IS ME! Even though we are going to a country where I could literally show up with my passport and a credit card and be fine, I feel like there are THINGS I need for my trip. To be honest, though, most of my panic buying has been as a result of my two big travel fears – that the kids will be bored or hungry on the plane ride. Okay, so far, I’ve panic bought:
– A new purse. Or rather three new purses to try. Is this a panic buy or rather a procrastination buy? My purse is literally in tatters, so I needed a new one anyway.

-New shoes. Or rather four new pairs to try on.

-Crocs for the 5 year old because the strap fell off hers this summer, so she needed a new pair anyway.

-Princess sticker book. Also a few other activity books for the flight. I don’t know why because let’s be honest, the kids are just going to watch 20 hours of tv on the plane.

-Mad libs. The kids seem to really take a liking to these this year.

-Card games. I bought a mini Uno to carry in my purse, and Skyjo, a new to me card game. We’ve already opened the latter and it seems like it will be a good game for us because it’s numbers based. The seven year old picked up on it rather quickly. I’m always on the lookout for good games that aren’t language based because we’re not always playing with English speakers.

-This activity book. Which the kids have already started on, so I’m not sure that it will come on our trip:

-Small four compartment snack containers, because snacks need to be organized.

-Some books to read on the way. I like to read books written by authors from the place I’m visiting.

-plug adaptors, which I think the Husband has ordered.

Still to panic buy:
-Snacks. All the snacks.

-Trader Joe’s tote bags. Because we’ll be seeing lots of relatives and it’s such a gift-giving culture, I want to bring some small, simple gifts with me just in case. I read somewhere that Trader Joe’s tote bags are much coveted in Asia, so I’m going to pick up a few and some TJ’s snacks to gift.

-Soft pants for the 7 year old. I think I’m going with the philosophy that comfy clothes = pjs for the flight, so I need to get some more soft pants for the kid.

-water colour postcard pad. I like being able to do some water colour paintings when I travel, and I’m out of the small size paper. Of course I could just cut up the larger size paper that I have….

-Travel keyboard so I can write and do some work on my iPad while gone.

-eSim card. Does anyone have experience with these? Particularly in Asia? Is it a better option than just getting the day to day international coverage from my carrier?

Grateful for:
-all the above things about the show and the people who made it happen.

-The Husband for holding down the fort at home.

-The myriad of boba shops near the theatre. The 12 year old and I had a lot of boba last weekend; it was fun having the choice of places to go to.

-A new traffic light on the way home. There is one way to get home that requires making an unprotected left hand turn onto a very busy street. It’s actually marginally shorter than the other way I go home. I used to avoid going home this way, because I didn’t want to have to make that left hand turn. They have recently put a stop light there and it is now not so scary and I drive that way all the time now.

-Our friend for giving us his CSA share from this week while he was away on vacation. Free vegetables!!! Although, there was a kholrabi the size of a baby’s head. I’m at a loss what to do with it, but the 12 year old figured it out:

Looking forward to:
-weeknights at home this week. So far in December I’ve had one evening at home with the family. There were a couple free days, but we spent those out and about. This week, I have three nights at home to cook dinner, eat dinner, squabble, and referee sibling disputes. (or to ignore them.)

-Our anniversary. Last year our sitter cancelled and we ended up staying home for our anniversary, but the oldest kid rallied her siblings to make a sign and then she told the Husband and I that she would watch the kids while we had a movie date night in the basement. It worked so well that we decided to put the kids in charge of our anniversary again. We’ll see what happens!

-Our trip and seeing family and new places and eating good food. The 5 year old woke me up at 6am this morning, asking, “Mom, when are we going to pack our suitcases?”

-Sleeping and exercising. There’s been precious little of that these past six weeks.

-Reading in a chair with a cup of tea. Or on a plane. Regardless – uninterrupted reading time. I’ve been an a romance novel kick lately – Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series and Courtney Milan’s Wedgeford Trials series.

-This audiobook – I love a good Jane Austen inspired book, and this one is quirky and creative. I almost wish I were still commuting to the theatre so that I can listen to it more. Almost.

One more week until Christmas! How is your week going? Do you ever panic buy anything?

Tech week is coming!, Christmas-ish, + gratitudes

Another tech week approaches – the last one for 2024! I feel like I just went through tech week, and here we are again. I’m actually pretty excited for this one because the 12 year old is in the show that I’m working on. The logistics of the rehearsal carpool have been complex. We are carpooling with two other families, and it’s taken six adults and a spreadsheet to get these kids to rehearsals and performances.

Things I’ve done these past few days to prep for tech week:
– pick out my outfits for the week
– make a big batch of something to eat all week (the red lentil soup that J blogged about). Hopefully there will be enough for the 12 year old to eat too. Which reminds me I’ll have to pack snacks for her as well. She gets to the theatre at 4:30p and rehearses until 9:30p – I’m not sure when theatre kids eat dinner.
-paid bills. Inevitably during tech week, I forget to pay a bill or two, so I made a point to find the utility bills and pay them.
– made a batch of hard boiled eggs in the InstantPot for breakfast.
-bought the big container of yogurt. Actually I had my friend who was going to Costco pick it up for me. During tech week, yogurt is a complete meal.
-Take a shower. I feel silly putting this on the list, but sometimes I forget.

I still need to stock up on fruits and veggies and healthy snacks.

Tech week reminders for me:

Eat well
Sleep. No revenge bedtime procrastinating
Limit the scroll cycle.
Don’t drop the ball on life admin things. Find time for them.
Hug the family whenever I can.
Find time to go outside every day.

On not Christmas-ing. I haven’t been feeling the Holiday Spirit this December. It’s barely registering for me that Christmas is in two and a half weeks. Some of it is because the weather has been really warm lately. Some of it is because I’ve been really busy at work. And also because we’ll be travelling, we haven’t decorated or gotten a tree or put up Christmas lights. We’re taking a “The trip is the present” approach and not really doing Christmas presents. The little kids have been writing sad Santa letters: “Dear Santa, Don’t come to our house because we won’t be here.” Literally.

I think more than in past years, I’m realizing that Christmas is what we make it to be. If we don’t buy the presents, there will be no presents. If we don’t set up the mantel, the mantel will stay bare. It’s kind of interesting to opt out of all the Christmas things to see what we really hold meaningful, and what is just stress-ladened expectations.

What we have done, though:
-Tuba Christmas! Luckily this year Tuba Christmas coincided with the free day, so I was able to go with the whole family. As a lovely bonus, my cousin and my friend K came along too. My cousin was in town for work, and I didn’t think I would get to see her, but she came in a day early to spend Tuba Christmas with us. Afterwards we went for dumplings.

-Listened to Christmas music. The Husband has one play list that is 12 different versions of “We Need a Little Christmas.” That always makes me laugh. I’ve also been listening to choral Christmas music when I need something quiet and calming.

-Watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and Spirited. Spirited is becoming one of our “must watch” Christmas movies every year.

-Went to Longwood Gardens to see the Christmas displays. We didn’t stay long enough to see the lights, but we see trees and the trains. We also saw the new conservatory, which was beautifully bright.

What I’ve been missing:
-Going to church. I’m not the Catholic one in the family, but I do still like going to church with the family. Lately I’ve had to work on Saturdays (the Husband likes to go to Saturday evening mass), so I haven’t been to Mass with them. I’m missing the carols and the Gospel reading and the time to sit and think about what Christmas means.

-Hallmark movie binges. I’ve watched maybe two Hallmark Holiday movies this year, which if you remember my posts from last year, is pitiful. I did re-watch Biltmore Christmas, which might be my most favorite Hallmark holiday movie ever. SOOOOOO good and sweet and romantic and just the right tone of angst and longing.

-The house smelling like Christmas greenery. I don’t know if I miss having to get the tree and get out all the ornaments and decorate it, but I do miss walking into the house and being greeted by the smell of fresh pine.

-Advent candles. When we do find time to do advent candles, we aren’t super consistent with them, but I do like the ritual.

-Christmas picture books. I used to borrow 24 Christmas books from the library and we would read one each night in lieu of having an advent calendar. The Husband did borrow a stack of books and there are a few we can pull out from our own collection to read, but it hasn’t been the book flood it has been in the past.

-Planning a big Christmas meal. Though I did just do Thanksgiving…

What I haven’t been missing:
-The anxiety of Christmas shopping. I actually like thinking about and buying gifts for people, but it takes a lot of mental and financial resources to do it. I do feel a little bit guilty that I’m not making an effort to buy gifts, but I don’t have the bandwidth right now. Maybe after my show closes, I might run out and get a few things, or do some baking, but I’ve passed the window for ordering things online, and I think it actually makes gift giving simpler when there isn’t the infinite world of the internet available. We have talked about maybe having a few surprise gifts waiting at the house for when the kids get back, but it’s nothing like the four or five + stocking stuffers we usually do.

– Drive through Christmas light displays. We always tried to go to these on a weeknight and it always seemed like a bit of a mad rush. I do like Christmas lights; the other day I drove the long way home through a neighborhood with lots of lights, and that was nice.

-Trying to Christmas plan while in tech.

-Secret Santa or White Elephant gift exchanges.

I’m sure there are more things I’m forgetting happened during this season, but I clearly don’t remember them enough to miss them…

Some Bummer news– I don’t think I’ll be working this summer. I have a trip planned with the 12 year old that is in the middle of the opera season with the company I work for during the summer, and the one show that I was available to work has already been staffed. The lack of contract has hit me harder than I want to. It always is a little sad when I don’t get contracts, and it fills me with self-doubt (Did they not like me enough? Will I ever work with them again? Is there someone younger and cooler and better than me who got the contract?) Also often one gets work by returning to a place season after season, and if you miss a season, there’s not guarantee that there will be a slot for you the following season. (I had a really horrible experience with this at one company where I decided to take a summer off after I had my second child and they never asked me back again – the person who hired me literally told me that it wouldn’t be fair to my replacement if they couldn’t come back the following seasons.) I know I make the choice to be a freelancer but it makes me realize how little job stability there is with this job that I love. Because I can’t take PTO or leave to do things that I want, there are long term repercussions to not being available for work. Oh well, I’m reminding myself that my job is not more important than my family, and that this trip with my 12 year old is cooler than any job. I guess I’m just petulant that I can’t have it all.

Grateful for:
-My friend/college roommate K who I haven’t seen at all this fall, despite the fact that she lives in this area. But I texted her and asked if she wanted to come see the final rehearsal room run through of our show and she said “Yes!” I knew the 12 year old really wanted someone she knew to be there, and the Husband couldn’t make it since it was the same time as the 7 year old’s piano recital. K has a very full life – in addition to her full time job, she plays in a string quartet – but I’m grateful that she makes the effort to show up when she can.

-Not having to deal with car seats anymore. I’ve been having to drive carpool to rehearsals, which means putting four pre-teens in my car – three in back and one in front. The two little kids are still in booster seats, so I have to pull out the boosters every time I’m driving opera carpool. I’m very grateful that I’m just pulling out booster seats (which don’t have to be latched in), and not pulling out full on car seats which are kind of like wrestling damp ten ton octopuses. Also grateful that I can put one kid up front so that I don’t have to drive the van since my parking lot at work is the size of a postage stamp.

-Kind words and ketchup chips. One of the directors of our show is from Canada. She actually directed the first show I did the fall too. And before she left after the first show she asked if she could bring me anything when she came back for the second show. “Ketchup chips!” I said half jokingly. Well, she showed up for the second show with a bag of ketchup chips for me. How awesome was that? But also, this past week, both the directors of the show have each pulled me aside at one point to tell me how good the 12 year old is onstage. One of them even said, “I’m not saying this because you’re a staff member. She’s really very smart onstage.” I feel like one of those super critical stage moms because sometimes when I watch the 12 year old in rehearsal (and I try not to watch her too much) all I can see is when she’s not paying attention or goofing off or not coming in on the right beat of music. I’ve always struggled a little because I want the people I love to be perfect because I believe in them, and I tend to be more forgiving of the people whom I’m not as close to. Being told that my kid was doing well, was kind of an eye opening; someone was telling me that my kid was enough and that they saw good work happening- it made me realize that I should also be seeing her strengths this way as well.

Well, that’s the news from here. Hope everyone has a lovely week!

If you celebrate Christmas, how Christmas-y are you feeling right now? Have you ever had to install a car seat? What is your favorite Canadian snack?

Thanksgiving 2024 + more gratitudes – NaBloPoMo 2024, #21

It was a quiet, low key Thanksgiving – which suited me just fine, as it was the one day off sandwiched between days of rehearsals. Wednesday night I took the 12 year old and her friend to see Wicked. I don’t go to see many movies and we almost didn’t get to go because I didn’t realize that these days you have to buy movie tickets in advance. Where are the days when you just went up to the ticket window and said, “Three please for the 5:30 showing of Wicked.”? Anyhow, there were no good seats left at our first choice movie theatre and time, so we ended up at a different theatre, but it was fine.

I ate lots of popcorn and drank lots of Sprite – probably too much because I ended up having to go pee right before the end of the movie and I missed the last minute of “Defying Gravity.” Wump Wump. The movie was gorgeous and very entertaining, but also quite long. I think there’s something in movies that demands more detail in story-telling. I was wondering how they make a 2.5 hour musical into a five hour movie, and I think it’s all about drawing out the story-telling into minute details and gestures that you don’t need in the theatre. It’s such a different method of story-telling.

Thanksgiving day, the Husband set up a TV in the kitchen so that we could watch the Macy’s Day Parade while making sausage balls. It’s our Thanksgiving Day tradition to watch the Macy’s Day Parade and the Husband noticed that I sometimes missed the Parade because I was in the kitchen cooking, so he set up the TV in the kitchen so we could all be together.

I had already done a lot of prep, but I still had to finish the buns, the turkey, masked potatoes, and steam the broccoli. It was feeling like a lot, so I made a little spreadsheet so that I could map out the rest of the day. At work we call this making a train schedule, and it helps me feel less panicked about the rest of the day when I see it mapped out:

After the Parade, we watched the Westminster Dog Show, as we always do. For the first time, a pug won best in show – how awesome is that? By the end of the dog show, everyone was getting a little stir crazy, so I took the two little kids out for a bike ride. We always need a bit of outdoor time at some point before we eat on Thanksgiving day – sometimes I forget and everyone goes bonkers by the time the food is ready, so we need to remember to plan this outdoor time into the day.

We got home and I started to carry out the cooking plan. One thing I forgot to figure into the plan was time to carve the turkey, so we didn’t actually sit down until 3:45pm. We had one guest for dinner – a work colleague who was new to town and wasn’t able to go home for Thanksgiving. He was a good sport to come over to the chaos of dinner at our house. Our kids can be super social and ask lots of questions and have a lack of table manners. After dinner we played Castle Panic, a fun cooperative board game which involves protecting your castle from trolls and goblins and orcs. We managed to win with one castle tower standing. I highly recommend Castle Panic as a fun family board game that doesn’t get competitive. After our guest left, the kids got into pjs and we watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving menu 2024:
-Our traditional Thanksgiving morning project – Sausage balls, a tasty combination of sausage, cheddar cheese and Bisquick. We snack on these all day and they become breakfast and lunch on Thanksgiving day.
-Because we were having a guest, I put out some snacky appetizers: cheese and crackers and crudité with homemade blue cheese sauce (Greek yogurt, lemon, grated garlic, and blue cheese crumbles)
The main meal:
-Turkey – spatchocked, buttermilk brined, recipe from the New York Times. I think I will always spatchcock my turkey. The 12 lb turkey cooked in 75 minutes and I don’t need to stuff it.
-Steamed broccoli – a little plain, but this is how the kids like it.
-Cranberry sauce – made from the recipe off the bag, with some orange zest thrown in.
–Sweet Potato Buttermilk Rolls , also from the New York Times – I don’t think I love these/didn’t make them quite right. In an attempt to make them ahead of time, I did two slow rises in the fridge and they tasted a little fermented. I also think I should have left them in the oven a bit longer because they were almost too soft.
-Spring Mix Salad – salad green, apples, pecans, parmesan, cherry tomatoes. Just a basic salad because I didn’t think there was enough green in the meal.
-Mashed Potatoes – basic – potatoes, olive oil, butter, half and half, and sour cream. I wasn’t originally going to make these, but then I made a huge batch of gravy and we had a guest coming over, and I thought, “It doesn’t feel like a proper Thanksgiving dinner without potatoes.” So the Husband went out that afternoon and got some potatoes.
-Gravy – I made this ahead of time. It was a little bland. Need to figure out how to pump up the “meaty” taste.
-Rainbow Jello “Salad” – Recipe from my mother in law’s recipe box – we make it every holiday meal. A layer of Jello mixed with sour cream to make it pastel colour and then a layer of Jello made as normal. It makes for a really pretty dessert. Or a salad, depending on where you’re from.
-Pumpkin Pie- recipe from the Tartine cookbook, with an extra egg yolk for a firmer custard.
–Pecan Slab Pie – (another NYTimes recipe) – This ended up more like a bar cookie than a pie. It was still tasty, just not what I expected. Also – I miss having an apple pie. Now I know – I’ll always want and apple pie.

It was a lovely spread – I didn’t take any photos, though, so you’ll just have to believe me!

I already wrote an entire post about how I’m grateful for the Husband, and I thought I’d write about a few more people for whom I’m so thankful, to round out this month:

-Everyone who participated in NaBloPoMo 2024, by reading, by posting, by commenting here and around the interwebs. Thanks to San for organizing this. NaBloPoMo came at a really busy time for me, and I wasn’t sure if I should participate, but I’m glad I did. Ultimately, I only wrote 21 posts (I’m counting this one because it’s still November somewhere…) , but I think that’s actually pretty good for how full my month was. What I really loved was how people shared their lives in both their posts and in their comments and the sense of connection that comes across the screen.

– My grandparents, for so many things, but I think one of the biggest things is that they worked with my parents to set aside enough money that I graduated debt-free from college. The way they think about the future and the next generations was such a gift.

-My parents, who left home, emigrated to another country and have always been supportive of me.

– All the stage managers who worked with me, taught me, and mentored me through the years. Even though one can go to school to get a degree in stage management, I mostly figured out how to do my job through many internship, and just by watching other people do it, and by doing it myself, making mistakes, and figuring it out. When I first started out, I did a couple of internships and I was lucky to work under some really amazing stage managers – they were precise and detailed and had really high standards. I see now, after twenty years, that they were also wonderfully human people with insecurities and quirks. I think about these mentors every day I’m working.

-My kids. They are maddening and wonderful all at the same time. They help me think about what it means to be a good human – both in terms of who I want them to be and who I want to be for them. They have such capacities for joy and thoughtfulness. I know it’s a cliche, but seeing the world through them has made me a better person.

Well that’s the end of NaBloPoMo 2024- I didn’t get to all the posts that I had planned to write; I also wrote a couple posts I hadn’t planned on writing. I didn’t get around to answering the Ask Me Anything questions this month, but I still plan to do that in December for sure. If anyone still wants to submit Ask Me Anything questions via this link, I’m happy to answer them!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and here is wishing everyone a joyful December.

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Weekly recap and other gratitudes- NaBloPoMo #18

It’s been a wild weekend in my opera world. I’m still processing, so perhaps I’ll give the run down next week. I’ve fallen off the NaBloPoMo routine this weekend because it’s been busy, so here’s kind of a catch all post. I haven’t had a proper weekly recap post in a while, so I thought I’d write some of the random things that have gone on this week:

– I did the supertitles for a voice recital last week. It was a really fun program, though the second song set was not performed in the order I was given, so that caused a bit of panic, but I was able to catch up and get the right translation slides in place. Also – fun story – the artists added a song the day before the recital and the pianist sent me the music and text so I could make slides.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll do it tonight.” I wrote in response.
“Thank you!” he replied. “Do you drink wine? :)”
“I don’t actually,” I wrote, “But I do eat chocolate.” Which, normally, I don’t make gratuitous grabs for chocolate, but I figured, why not?
Well the pianist brought me three bags of those Lindt chocolate balls. I thought that was super kind.
The coda to that story. A few days later, I noticed the five year old had chocolate peppermint breath. I didn’t think anything about it until I saw an empty bag of Lindt peppermint truffles on the kitchen floor. The sneaky kid had eaten an entire bag by herself. There were tears and sad faces. I can’t tell if I was more upset that she snuck chocolate, or that I didn’t get to eat my peppermint chocolates.
Oh, also during the recital, the singer sang a John Denver song, Perhaps Love, which was a little unusual, but this line made my heart contract every time he got to it:

-Friday I had the day off, and it coincided with the Thankgiving party at the 7 year old’s class. I was on the fence about going – there seems to be many demands on a parent’s time from the school, and it was my one day off. I will admit I am not the most involved parent – I don’t PTA, I don’t Room Parent, I didn’t make it to Parent-Teacher conferences this fall. But I figured it makes the 7 year old happy when I show up, so I can do it a couple times a year. I signed up to bring an activity. After some late night googling, I decided to bring in decorative gourd bowling. I bought several decorative gourds and 12 bottles of water. I put food colouring in the water bottles – red, orange, and yellow, for some fall flavor. And that was it. I think the whole thing cost $15. At the school, I set up the water bottle like bowling pins and let the kids bowl with the decorative gourds. It was surprisingly popular for the amount of effort I put into it. Maybe not so surprising, though. I mean what kid wouldn’t want to throw produce at things? The fun thing, then, was when the bowling started getting a little out of hand, I took the 7 year old and sprung him out of school early and we went home. It just feels fun to be able to leave school early on a Friday afternoon.

=And then that night we went to a middle school production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a lot of fun. The weekend before we had gone to see A Year with Frog and Toad at the high school. Between those two productions, I’m realizing what an awesome thing school drama productions are. First of all, it’s a low key way to take my own kids to the theatre and that form of story-telling. And also, I love the sense of community- we had friends who were involved in both productions and it’s great to be able to support them.

-I haven’t written a dinner post lately, and that’s because I haven’t been home for dinner very much these past few weeks. One morning, I was packing all the snacks and food for everyone for the day and I think I packed more food to be eaten on the go than at home. I packed:

Three lunches (me, the seven year old, the four year old)
Two dinners (me and the seven year old since we both ahd a show that night)
Four snacks – two for the seven year old (one for school and one for the evening at the theatre), one for me, one for the 12 year old who had rehearsal that evening.

It seemed like a lot of portable food to pack for one day. Anyhow, the Husband has been making the majority of dinners this month. A few good dinners that I made, which I want to remember for the future:

Cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur Baking cookbook. These were savory and slightly spicy. The recipe suggested we top it with queso, which I might try next time. I actually mixed the dry ingredients ahead of time and the Husband did the rest when he got home.
Instant pot shrimp biryani from NYTimes Cooking. This was a pantry meal that I managed to make in thirty minutes one day when I had no plans for dinner.
Honey glazed mushrooms and udon noodles also from NYTimes Cooking – I had a head of cabbage to use up.
Happy hour dinner- crackers and charcuterie and I made a batch of Brazilian cheesy bread. Cut up veggies and fruit as well. The kids really love this kind of meal.
Not dinner, but my go-to lunch has been massaged kale salad. I prepped and washed a large container of kale ahead of time, and then in the morning, I massage a few handfuls with olive oil, sesame oil, and salt. Then I throw together with whatever I have on hand – roasted sweet potato, walnuts, daikon radish, avocado, apples… It’s sturdy so will keep in my lunchbox all day, and packed with vegetables so that it feels energizing to eat during long days at the theatre.

-I’ve been thinking lately about being nice. We have feedback sessions at the end of the each show with the stage management team. There was a comment at one point about someone not being very nice, having a very direct edge to their tone when they spoke to other people. I struggle with whether or not to pass this feedback along to that person. On the one hand, not someone being nice can have an effect on morale if you aren’t used to working with them. At the same time, I don’t believe that we all need to homogenous in our way of speaking or acting, and I do think we all need to learn to interact with people who have different styles of communication. And maybe it’s because I’ve worked with this person for many many years, that I have blinders as to whether the reports about them not being “nice” is a problem. Because they are one of the kindest people that I know. And to me, being kind is much more important than being nice. So I’ve been turning these ideas over in my head – about what place does personality have in work place culture and how to value different personalities as part of the whole package that someone is.

Things I’m grateful for this week: We’re going into Thanksgiving week – there are so many things to be grateful for and I was going to write a whole week of gratitude posts. Here are some small ones to start off:

Handles – this feels kind of silly, but my laptop sleeve has a handle and it makes it super easy to carry when I also have four other bags to bring to work. Every time I pick up the laptop, I think, “Boy am I glad there’s a handle!” I mean think about all the handles in your life! Doors, boxes, coffee cups… Handles make life better.

My apple box, and the prop guy who gets it for me – The stage management console at the theatre was clearly designed for someone taller than me. When I stand at it, my score is chest height, which makes it uncomfortable to turn pages and turn my cue lights on and off. (The cue lights are the colored lights that I use to tell the crew when to execute a cue. They are at the back of my console.) So I stand on an apple box. It’s not literally an apple box – it’s a wooden box about the size of an apple crate, which is why it’s called an apple box. Every time I call in this theatre, I ask the prop head for my apple box and he finds it, only giving me a little bit of grief for being short.

The seven year old and me backstage – he’s standing on my apple box.

Rock Creek Parkway – This is the road I take to the theatre. The thing is, though, the traffic goes into the city in the morning and out of the city in the evening. I, however, go into the city in the evening, so I can’t use it. So I end up having to drive through D.C. during rush hour to get to an evening performance call. Driving through the city is tedious in normal times; during rush hours it is soul sucking. I’m grateful for whenever I can take the parkway and not have to drive through Dupont Circle.

Ten extra minutes in the morning – Because of the late nights, I’ve been sleeping in a little later than normal and the mornings have seemed a little more breathless than usual. One day we left the house a few minutes late and I realized that we were going to miss the bus, so I drove the kids straight to school, parking on the trail and walking up to the school. Turns out, if we choose to drive them walk to school, I can leave a little later, buying me an extra ten minutes in the morning and I also get a little walk in up to the school and back to the parking lot on the trail. Those ten extra minutes give me the space to breathe and think through everything that I need for the day.

How was your weekend? Who is the kindest person you know? What quotidian thing are you grateful for this week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Weekly gratitudes – NaBloPoMo #12

This week grateful for:

A weeknight at home- I got to cook dinner, help with homework and piano, do laundry, and go to bed before midnight. It was amazing.

Opening a show. There was one little snafu during the show, but otherwise it went well. It felt good to finally call all the cues in my book.

Printed spot labels. One of the most time consuming parts of putting cues in my book is writing in the information for the spotlight operators. The Stage Manager tells the spot ops whom to pick up with their light, where that person will be onstage, and what level intensity the light will be (in percentage) and also when to switch the colour in their light and then when to fade out. It’s a lot. Usually it takes a few hours to get it all in my book. My grandboss had this brilliant idea this show for the Assistant Lighting Designer, who creates the spotlight cues, to type labels with all this information. It was amazing. I just took the labels, put them in my book, and read them for the first time during final dress rehearsal. Okay, so it’s not my ideal situation to blindly call the spots for the first time during final dress- I like to have a better sense of what the spots need to do. But I simply did not have time to put the cues in my book ahead of time during this show. Having the spot cues pre-written took a huge chunk off my plate.

Friends who took the 5 year old for an overnight On one of the nights when the Husband had to be at the theatre late to pick up the 7 year old, our neighbors picked up the 5 year old from school (our kids are at the same pre-school) and kept her for the evening and an overnight. The 5 year old had a great time and it was helpful for her not to have to ride along to the theatre.

My hoodie that I keep in the office. I don’t usually love having branded work swag, but having this hoodie was really helpful last week because it was really cold in the theatre. And I spent a lot of time in the theatre.

All the people I work with – I know I said this last week, but it’s still true. I’ve dropped the ball on a lot of things or passed things off, and people have picked up the slack and given me grace and we still get the show up and sometimes we laugh a lot along the way, even while realizing how ridiculous the situation is. I couldn’t do this job if everyone was an asshole.

The Husband – it’s broken record worth listening to. The kids and I could not get through tech week and our busy schedules if he didn’t pick them up, feed them, drive them places, help with homework, bake cookies (he baked cookies on Monday when he was off for Vegeans’s day!), do laundry, pick up the house, keep in touch with contractors, and worry about us driving late at night.

What are you grateful for this week?

Things that ground me this week – NaBloPoMo Day 10

A few weeks ago, I signed on to a free online parenting class offered by the Parenting Encouragement Program. It is supposed to be a seven week course, but I could only make one night out of seven. The class I went to was about rituals and routines. At one point the class leader asked, “What routines do you have that make you feel grounded?”

I found myself raising my hand. “What do you mean by ‘grounded’?” I asked.

I can’t for the life of me remember exactly what the response was, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot during this busy busy season. To me, it means those things that make me feel stable and human. Those things that, when it seems like life is out of control and I’m starting to spin in my head, those things that remind me that we are human beings, not human doings. Rituals and routines that give me a bit of mental space so that I have the capacity for more inputs.

I do feel silly about how hard I found this past week. I mean I make opera; I don’t perform heart surgeries on babies. It’s not life and death. (I mean, not literally.) But it was a hard week, mentally and physically for me.

When I was writing the title of this post, asking myself, “What things ground me this week?” I thought – well, to be honest, tech really ground me to a pulp this week. Isn’t there a beautiful irony in that? The things that make me feel grounded are the things that I really need when life is grinding me up and spitting me out.

Here are a few things:

Tea in a mug. I often bring tea in my travel mug, but lately I’ve been re-discovering the tactile sense of connection of drinking out of a mug, the heat seeping into my hands and warming all of me. Drinking hot tea, strong and steaming, pulls me into a moment of just being and feeling present.

Short hot hot hot hot showers. I’m not a shower every day kind of person. I’m not even a shower every other day person. But this past week, I found that three minutes under a steaming hot blast of water was cathartic. I would drag myself up in the morning, after getting home past midnight. Sometimes during tech I decide sleep trumps showers. But these days I have to be up to pack lunches anyway, so I get up, feeling like the hard hard rehearsal the night before was still clinging to me. And even though I barely had time in the morning, I turn the water on super hot and jump in the shower, just long enough to breathe the steam and feel the sting of water burning my skin. And came out feeling like I’m going to make it through the day.

Classical music on the way into work. I have an audiobook for my long commutes to the theatre, but this week, on the way in, I just wanted to listen to classical music – I wanted the soothing, wordless melodies – anything with words would be too much. My mind could trace the musical lines as I listened, but also my mind could wander and problem solve and think about the day ahead. I think while part of being grounded is about being fully present in the moment, there is part of being in the moment that is also about thinking of the problems ahead. The challenges of the day are also part of the present moment. I know that people talk about mindfulness as being in the now, but I think the now is also made up of aspects of past and future as well.

Holding my son’s hand. The seven year old is in my show. (Which, on reflection, wasn’t a great idea for the family – it’s certainly has pushed us to activity capacity and the late nights have messed up a lot of things.) Some days he comes to the theatre before the child minder is on duty, so I take him out to the house with me where he sits in the seats behind me as I put cues in my book. He holds my hand as we walk around backstage and that little warm firm grasp reminds me that here is a living breathing human that I somehow pushed into the world, and how awesome is that?

The routine. Getting up in the morning and packing lunches – two slices of bread, two slices of cheese, two slices of ham. Apple, sliced. Five slices of cucumbers. One cookie. Feed the kids. What is important right now? Not obsessing about how to fit in 40 minutes of chorus break in a 4 hour rehearsal, but rather, packing this lunch so that the kids aren’t hungry at lunchtime. I don’t know how I’m going to fit in all those breaks, but I do know that we will get in the car at 9:55am to catch the school bus at 9:06am.

Expressing gratitude. For the Husband, for good colleagues, for the fine weather (that I don’t get to see). For being so very damn lucky that I get to make opera for a living.

What grounds you these days? What is grinding you up these day?

Weekly Gratitudes- NaBloPoMo Day 8(?)

A quick list this week. Because tech week.

Things I’m grateful for this week:

Tech- because it was so all consuming that it was a good distraction and kept me from spiralling over election news.

My Stage Management Team – because they kept rehearsals moving backstage, and any time I ask for help or give them a task, the answer is, “Sure, I can do that.” or “What if we did it this better way instead?” This show was really hard for me, and I’m so glad that I had assistants who were beyond competent.

Everyone I work with- for being collaborative and kind.

Post It Notes – Because it seems like all I did this week was run rehearsals or put light and scenic cues in my score. I’m grateful for Post It notes, because it is easy to move the cues around as we try to figure out how really we want scenic shifts to happen. (I think I’ve blogged about how this all works before, but I’m too fried to try to find that post… Maybe I’ll do another post some time.)

Yogurt – for being a complete meal. I feel like a terrible managerial example this week – I always try to tell my team to take their meal breaks and I barely took any the past few days. Thank goodness for yogurt.

Computers and email for sending documents – When I started at this company we were still faxing attendance sheets to the people who submitted payroll. Also when I started at this job, we would type up rehearsal notes and then print the out and put a copy in each person’s mailbox at work. So time consuming. Now we just scan/draft an email, and then hit SEND! Easy peasy.

The Husband – because he has done so much driving this week. And he holds things together and takes care of the kids and the house and still goes to work every day. He’s been the one that’s had to deal with traffic and kids’ tempers and laundry and so much more. Oh and the two days that the kids were off school, he was home with them and one day even took the day off work and took them to the Air and Space Museum. I might have worked 76 hours last week, but he worked 168.

What are you grateful for this week? Have you ever had to use a fax machine? Do you still have to use a fax machine?

Weekly Gratitudes – NaBloPoWriMo Day #2

On my weekly posts, I always try to write at least three things I am grateful for that week. So for NaBloPoWriMo, my weekly gratitude list gets it’s own post.

This week, some things I’m grateful for:

-My sewing machine still working. I sat down two days before Hallowe’en to sew my 12 year old’s costume, and when I plugged it in – nothing happened. I started to despair. Is there anything more despairing than a non-working sewing machine two days before Hallowe’en???? After a moment of spiraling, I unplugged the machine and plugged it into a different outlet. And it worked! Turns out the machine is so old that you have to plug the plug in right side up. I tried to google why this is, but the explanation is too dense for me to process right now. The important thing is that the machine worked and I was able to finish the 12 year old’s Hallowe’en costume.

-Beautiful balmy weather this week. There were a couple days where the weather was in the high 80s this week. Not what I expected for end of October, but the sunshine and warm air was lovely.

-My bike. I had one day when we didn’t have rehearsal so I just went to work to do some paperwork. Since the day was a little flexible, I decided to ride my bike in. I did walk the bike up the big final hill, but other than that, it was a great ride. And then a few days later, because my bike was still at work, I went for a bike ride instead of a run on my dinner break. Running is not so fun for me. Biking is pure joy.

-Text from my 12 year old. There have certainly been some ups and downs and learning curves with getting the 12 year old a phone, but one of the most delightful things is that she now texts me. Sometimes it’s just “hi.” Sometime it’s more than that. Often it’s “When are you coming home.” And then there are lots of pictures – mostly food and selfies. There are parts of the phone that aren’t really working for me, but getting texts from my daughter does make me smile.

-Daylights Saving time ending and getting one more hour of sleep. (Though it’s a little bit of bad timing because I’m about to start tech, which means a lot of late nights. When my body will think it’s 11:30pm and I’ll still have 30 mor minutes of rehearsal to go….)

-Binder Clips. Is there anything as useful as a binder clip? I mean aside from the obvious purpose of holding paper together. We use them in the kitchen to close up bags, like a chip clip. I use them at my desk as a photo holder. I use them when cooking to hold my cookbook open. I use them to clip a bunch of scrap paper together to make a little notepad. So many uses! This week, I discovered a new use – to hold up a music stand. So if you’ve ever worked with a music stand, you know that the top part goes up and down so that if you are standing or sitting, you can adjust the stand to the right height. But… Sometimes with not so great music stands, you pull the top up to be able to use them at a standing height and the weight of your book slowly makes the top sink down again. It’s maddening. Often, we just take gaff tape and tape the stand at the height we like, but this really pisses the prop people off because it can really gum up the shaft of the stand and then it won’t raise or lower anymore. Well, one of my colleagues showed me something brilliant. You can take a binder clip, and clip it to the inner shaft at the height you want and the binder clip with keep the top part of the stand from sinking down. Amazing! The simple binder clip fixed a problem that I’ve had ever since I started stage managing. I’ll take a picture and add it to this post if I can – it’s a little hard to describe how truly brilliant this is.

What are you grateful for this week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoWriMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!